The thought occurs to me that Christ died of asphyxiation from having his arms above his heart, the weight of his body sagging against his diaphragm. At least I’m not upside down, but there’s goddamned small chance anyone is going to find me here before I die. Not that they would let me down even if they did come across me. The wheel is on private property, and though his name isn’t on the deed everyone knows who owns it. They’d avert their eyes, pretend not to see me. They’d figure I deserved it.

And they’d be right, of course.

 

Friday Fictioneers

Venerable Colleague,

Though I am certain you have already seen the media stories, I felt compelled to alert you of our success. As you recall, our initial attempts to spread the infection through avian fauna was a failure. Songbirds were too susceptible to its effects, invariably dying before they were able to affect contagion, and the use of raptors or crows proved equally unacceptable. Only when we utilized an invasive species of insect, Poekilocerus Pictus, did we achieve the desired viral saturation in North America. 

I suggest that we allow the death toll to climb before we commence vaccine sales.

 

This story is part of the Friday Fictioneers weekly 100-word prompt.

I told the judge that the Almighty is responsible how I turned out. He made me this way. It ain’t my fault my purpose don’t fit with society. I am what I am.

As a boy I’d spend long hours of wishing, thinking how much better suited I’d been to Indian times when killings was common and the law scarce. I growed up knowing I’d kill people, that it was something I just had to do.

You see, death is the only thing I got in common with regular folks. By sharing their death, I can know what love feels like.

 

You hear about combat vets going all to pieces during thunderstorms. Grandpa didn’t mind them. With him, it was snow. Half inch of it and he was back in Bastogne, yelling about his buddy Stuart who got run over by a German tank and pushed into the permafrost. Grandpa would run outside in his pajamas screaming STUART! STUART! and digging at the ground with his bare hands until we pulled him back inside the house. We’d watch the forecasts real careful, and if there was a hint of snow we’d strap him in a chair faced away from the windows.

 

Honestly? That witch woman near scared hell out me, what with the smoke and the beads and all that hoodoo chanting.

They say you pay you money and you takes your choice, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about running out of that room right then and there.

D’Angelo said she’d need some of my blood to seal the deal, so I expected that part, but all the rest of it fair turned my stomach.

I swear, the only reason I went through with it was the fear she’d come after me if I backed out.

I tell you, never be a time like Katrina. That was the best. All them folks cowering in the Superdome meant one thing to us: New Orleans was unoccupied. It didn’t take much to get us a boat and a chainsaw. Bang, we was in business. East Jefferson, Algiers. All the streets took at least six foot of water or more. We’d drift up to a likely house, step onto the roof and cut our way in.  Mostly we took jewelry, it being portable, but Junior worked in a pawn shop and knew a valuable trumpet when he saw it.

 

The news shows like to depict Sudden Death Army members as nutjobs. There’s nothing insane about us. All of our operations are coordinated, with specific outcomes mapped out. Every detail of an assassination is planned. My last one, in Manhattan, took four months to set up. Once I had found the right apartment to shoot from, I got to know the girl who lived there well enough that she eventually gave me my own key.

On the day of the assassination, I told her she should go out of town.

Sloppy, I know, but she didn’t take the advice anyway.

 

Friday Fictioneers

 

Hans Möller was the chairman of Ostbayerische Motorenfabriken for sixty years, steering it through the years of war and Soviet occupation, through Glasnost and Perestroika. A paragon of frugality, a man of rigid habits known to dine on cold kraut and a single sausage for breakfast and dinner, lunch always omitted. It pained him to part with a penny, and his company set the standard for efficiency.

After his death it was discovered that he had the largest private collection of European automobiles in the world, each car a peerless example of perfection on which no expense had been spared.

 

I rise through the ceiling. It is impossible, yet I do it.

There is no feeling, but I can see my hands in front of me , solid as ever.

The night sky has no temperature, very little light.

Above me I see only the distant stars.

Then I am in a corridor.

I float face up, yet I can see ahead and behind as well.

A curious smell saturates the air, yet the odor reminds me of music. 

Emotions course through me without cause or effect, like paint on a canvas.

I am wholly alone, yet we are all together.

 

Our miller’s transgressions were so slight that but for the circumstances he would have evaded detection, though it is true that God sees everything and surely would have condemned his soul when he came to Judgment.

It was the girl who found him out, of course. The angels that whisper the secret knowledge of our doings spoke yet again, came to her in the night and showed her the thieving Miller. Upon waking, she ran to Father Gilles to denounce him. He denied everything, of course.

Father Gilles decreed to let the punishment fit the crime. Burn the mill after.