20 hard-hitting pieces of short fiction from this masterful writer.
Written in red. As always. She reads the words on the piece of paper, burns it, changes into black clothes, leaves her tiny apartment quickly and returns three hours later, shaking, with blood on her fists. In the shower, more red as the blood washes off, swirls around the drain, vanishes. When she steps out of the shower ten minutes later, this is written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror: "Next time, keep it clean. " She wraps a bath towel around herself, walks into her bedroom. Yeah, keep it clean, she thinks ...
Excerpt:
This time is no different. This time is exactly the same as the last hundred, the last thousand. Since paper was invented. Maybe before. Different people, but always the same objectives.
Because some words are more important than others. Some words have the power to change history.
***
Written in red. As always.
She reads the words on the piece of paper, burns it, changes into black clothes, leaves her tiny apartment quickly and returns three hours later, shaking, with blood on her fists.
In the shower, more red as the blood washes off, swirls around the drain, vanishes.
When she steps out of the shower ten minutes later, this is written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror: “Next time, keep it clean.”
She wraps a bath towel around herself, walks into her bedroom.
Yeah, keep it clean, she thinks. Like I asked the fat b—tard to bleed all over me.
Contemplates whether he can risk another interruption. Knows he cannot. Decides he doesn’t care, anyway. So he just sits quietly and fiddles with a crease in his pants.
And waits.
Joseph holds a red pen in his right hand, taps it on his big wooden desk. Thinking.
“How did she know?” Joseph says, his voice a cracked rock.
The man in the dark blue suit knows there is no way out of this. He knows he is going to die. In this room. Soon.
“There’s no way she could have known about Jennings,” he says, knowing it’s a stupid thing to say. Pointless. Just going through the motions. He imagines he feels the world slowing down, its creator finished with us, no longer watching, no longer caring what happens.
Joseph nods his head, holds his breath, purses his lips. He pulls a very long knife from a sheath taped to the underside of his desk. Shows it to the man in the dark blue suit.
“That manuscript was very important,” Joseph says. “Probably the most important manuscript we would ever have worked with. We’ve been doing this a long time, you and I. You’ve never f—ed up like this. I don’t understand it. And don’t try to shift the blame. You’re the one who hired Jennings.”
