dimple

I regret not washing my hair this morning. The police photo is probably going to be on the front page of every tabloid and online in multiple iterations. Comparisons will probably be made with that Nick Nolte booking picture. My face will forever appear in every "ten worst celebrity booking photos" line-up. There's no telling what my make-up looks like by now. I wonder if I ask nicely, will they let me just pop into a toilet and freshen up a bit? Probably not. And asking might earn me a response I won't like. My annual income is probably 500 times the salary these men and women earn. There's bound to be resentment.

This police car stinks. The predominant smell is urine - old urine. Maybe the drunk people pee in the car without even realizing that they're doing it. Or maybe people just get scared. I'm so stressed that I couldn't produce pee right now if the cop held a gun to my head. The cage bars separating this space from the front seat look really sturdy. I wonder how many times someone has beat their head against those bars. I could do that right now. But knowing my luck, someone would take a picture of me with their camera phone.

I'd like to know what the hell they're doing out there. The longer it takes for us to get down to the police station, the more likely the paparazzi will be waiting when I come out. I wonder if it's too late at night to arrange a decoy. A few minutes ago, an officer opened the front door and sat down in the driver's seat. He asked me a couple of questions and I answered them, thinking that doing so might speed up the process and get us moving towards the police station. Then it dawned on me that they had read me my rights upstairs when they first arrested me. Everything I was saying could be used against me. I told the officer that I didn't want to say anything else until I spoke with my attorney. He turned and looked at me with total disgust. Then he got back out of the car and slammed the door.

WHY WHY WHY did I agree to do this little errand for Simon? I should have said no. But there's something about that smile and those sparkling blue eyes and that damned dimple. He can make me do things. I had no idea I was doing anything illegal, but I did ask him why he needed me to do it. Why couldn't he go? He said he didn't want to be seen going into Jack Johnson's office because of the lawsuit. That actually made sense to me at the time. And now, here I sit, in this stinky squad car, waiting for the slowest police officers in the fucking universe.

aries

Ladies and gentlemen and children of all ages, behold! Thousands of years can pass without a moment as amazing as the one you are about to experience. Feast your eyes on the colorful and ever-changing magnificence of the one and only Aries of Bolodo. Once seen, a life is never the same. Songs will be written and sung. Pages will be written and read again and again. Dreams will be ever populated by the Aries,  bringing smiles to sleeping faces. You will ask yourself if you are dreaming now, for such a sight will strike you as impossible. Be steady. No sudden movements lest they be your last. Danger accompanies the Aries. Even one Ary can kill several men without any effort. But they will tolerate us if we remain calm.

eaters

Over the water, a sound traveled that was both unfamiliar and odd. When the sound started, every camper's head turned in that direction, pausing from whatever had been, a moment ago, occupying the thoughts and hands of  the now attentive listeners. Then one by one they each went back to what they had been doing. Except Nonesuch. He knew what was coming. He stared in the direction of the sound a full two minutes longer than the others. Then he looked at each of the other campers, one at a time, thinking to himself that he would probably be the only survivor and would never see these men again. With as little movement as possible, he poured the water from his canteen into the dirt behind him. Then he stood up, muttered to the others that he was going to get water and slipped away from camp.

Nonesuch stepped into the cool of the forest and looked back. Nobody was watching him. He eased around a tree and took up a rifle, which he placed up in the nearest tree. Then he dropped on to the ground and crawled to the back of the closest tent, pulled out his knife and cut a slot in the back. He peeked through, then reached his hand in and came back with a sleeping bag. Another grab earned him his bag and one final reach got him a box of rifle shells. He crawled back into the trees. Quickly, he packed the goods and slipped the bag onto his back. Then he was running, hoping to put as much distance between himself and the camp before the misery arrived.

By the time the first scream reached his ears, he was on the far side of the river. Then he ran south along the river towards the waterfall, knowing that he might have to jump. If the Eaters sniffed out a missing man, they would start looking for him. His only chance was to get some distance, then some water behind him. It didn't feel like his time to die, but maybe it never did for anyone. How would he know?