Mrs.

 When she heard the doorbell chime she

knew. She saw ribbons and gold buttons

and heard them say he died a hero.

They stood, flanked by plantation pillars.

Her eyes were perpetually glossy

and they stared into the past and future.

Surface tension kept them reflective,

as she sat dust-coated in lace filtered light.

So sad was she...the kind of misery

that makes one desperate for more sadness

as if it was a drug. She listened to the most

mournful songs, danced with death.

She hired the local painter, who quietly

watched her as he captured her grief

on canvas. She was statuesque, a glacier,

mouth faintly twitching and skin translucent.

He felt his brush sliding methodically.

As the paint grew thick she faded

while posing on crimson velvet. Her soul

leaked out, her breath a frigid breeze.

The artist knew that it was his best work,

and the most dangerous. For all who gazed

upon the woman in the painting were sucked

down and drowned in the abyss of her eyes.

The Last Minutes of the Zephyr...and Me

Shuddering.

Jarring.

I wake to the muffled concussions.

Why aren't there red lights flashing? Why isn't the alarm blaring?

I sit up and realize where I am. I'm still on the bridge. It all starts to come back.

Another muffled thud shakes the entire ship. This is not good. I really need my suit.

I had silenced the alarms after the first missile had hit. The klaxon of bells and shrill whines disabled me from thinking clearly.

Another shuddering wave ripples through the ship as I stand.

I sprint down the main shaft.

Thoom! The gravity goes out and I sail up and forward through the hatch I had aimed to hop through. I curl and slam my back into the top of the hatch, spinning wildly downward and forward.

My hands slap the gridded metal flooring of the passageway as I try to catch hold of it. I spin up and back from my efforts.

I lift my arms back and reach above and behind my head to protect it and see if I can gain purchase on something else.

Another ripple sends shockwaves flowing through the hull.

I grab hold of the top of the next hatchway and jerk down hard, propelling myself down the corridor.

One, two, three hatches to the right. I swing out my arm and grab hold of the lever for the open hatchway, swinging around and through.

Metal squeals around me as another shock envelops the ship.

There. On the left. I punch out the safety glass and slam my right palm onto the release button.

My suit bursts forth from its container as it expands into the null-G. I deftly slip my feet into the booties and quickly maneuver my arms into the sleeves.

Boom!

I zip the suit front quickly and snatch my helmet from its resting place.

Boom! Boom!

Two this time? DAMN! I have got to get to the gunnery!

I jam the helmet down over my head and slap the tabs into place with my gloved hands.

TSSSssssss. Oxygen and pressure flow into my suit as I turn and kick off gently from the wall toward the next hatch.

Tak Tak Tak. BOOM! Hybrid gunfire sprays can be heard as the next concussion rocks the vessel.

I grab the walls and thrust myself through the next hatchway flying straight for the lower half of the ship. Hands out I slap the sides of each passing hatchway to gain more momentum.

THooooom! The walls around me erupt in shattering, splintering metal and flame.

As I sail through the air the ship splits around me. I can hear the squeal of tearing metal and then it fades to silence as I watch.

The ship brakes apart and the pieces seem to float outward and away from me.

I watch. Dazed. Floating away. My ragged breathing the only sound.

Metal fragments sparkle like snowflakes as they catch the light, spiraling out into the universe.

Ship equipment spills out into the vacuum, each on its own path into oblivion.

I hear the soft sigh of air escaping my suit and then feel a searing pain in my calf.

I can only stare as I slowly tumble out into the universe.

The blackness seems to become more black.

The vacuum of space seems to have reached me at last.

The cold.

Black.

Nothing.

A Debt Settled

I glanced about the smoky room and stopped on the figure I came seeking. He was hunched over a wooden table with several others around him, playing a game of cards.

He was bedraggled like his companions. All I could see of him was his top hat and his worn and faded black overcoat as he looked down. He had a bottle of whiskey next to him with the top off, a small shot glass with the remnants of the last sip turning the bottom amber. Next to this was a tin cigarette tray full of ashes and remnants of rolling papers.

He tilted his head up from his cards laying them out on the scratched and worn tabletop and lifted his smoking cigarette from the tray. He looked directly at me. His sallow cheeks bearing salt and pepper whiskers. His greasy black hair hanging limp from under the tattered brim of his hat.

My eyes locked with his cold gray stare as he slowly placed the bent cigarette in the corner of his mouth, the other side curling up slightly into a smirk. His bushy eyebrows lifting slightly as a spark lit his gaze.

For how long we stared at each other I do not know. Time seemed to have slowed immeasurably. His hand slid slowly as if through smoky water to the table and fell there. Smoke from his cigarette plumed upward from his lips, obscuring his face slightly but not lessening the gleam in his blue gray eyes as we remained. Locked in a moment of time.

A bead of sweat formed and slipped slowly down the side of his face, becoming lost in the grizzled whiskers of his unkempt beard.

Two peals of thunder cracked through the dense air.

He stood with his right arm bent at the elbow, a gleaming metal gun in his ruddy brown hand. The barrel smoked in synchronicity with his cigarette.

His gray eyes widened ever so slightly as a deep red blossomed forth from his chest, coloring his sweat-stained shirt.

I looked down to see my gun falling from my hand and a crimson flow from my ribs down my side and to my pant legs.

I looked up, surprise on my face and saw his smirk once again. That sly curling of the corner of his mouth.

We both fell slowly to our knees, our gaze never wavering.

A fuzziness came about the edges of my vision then.

He fell forward, his arm reaching out aimlessly trying to catch on to something, the edge of the table, a chair, anything, but it moved too slowly. His finger too slack.

The room tipped before me. I felt my head thud onto the worn and dirtied floorboards.

Feet moved about me as I lay on my side and the darkness came from the edges of my vision. Marching inward. Closing me off from the world.

My mind found a few words then, before I was gone.

A life for a life.

Just.

Fair.

A debt finally settled.