Cesar
When they killed Cesar uptown it came about by sheer dumb luck and a lie.
His wife had not wanted him to go to work that day for her sleep had been all
nightmares full of what had to be portents, an empty bird feeder swinging in the
breeze, creaking like a hanged man, with every to and fro. A line of ants dead
in their tracks, the bodies forming a wavering arrow whose now stilled tip
touched the very base of their hill.
He kissed her forehead and told her
that he would be fine but when she persisted he snapped, telling her that her
anxiety was only because she had mixed her drinks despite having been warned not
to. He had made his mind up to go, besides, it was too nice a day; had it been
raining or even overcast he would have been half tempted.
At the office, the
lobby receptionist and the guard who shared her desk seemed pensive. Everyone
else was milling about, snapping into action every few minutes like freshly
wound toys whose purpose was to pantomime a work routine until the key once
again wound down.
Cesar sat at his desk debating on whether or not to send
for coffee. He looked out his window, down upon the skyline he had worked so
hard to rise above. If he could not relax or indulge himself every now and then,
then what was the point, aside from the good of the people of course. He grabbed
a few files that he could skim at home if he got to feeling guilty. In his mind
he was already deciding upon which record he was going to put on first; Jelly
Roll Morton, smoky but not dark.
"Waiting For Pasta To Cook" (Marker & Paper 5x7)
Wayne Wolfson
Brutus came in and asked him to poke his
head into the conference room, just to sort of give his blessing to the end of
quarter reports. He agreed, managing to not let his shoulders sag nor sigh too
loud, giving the caveat that he did not have long as he was already late for a
thing.
The door clicked behind him. The numbers on the overhead in black and
red, in the future would they have any meaning? There was a coldness, it kept
popping up, all over his body but mainly in the abdomen, chest and back. From
outside came the soundtrack, the plaintive horns of rush hour traffic, the only
thing that would have been even better, a chorus armed with old tin noise makers
from every New Year’s Eve parties past.
No one made eye contact with each
other, nor would they do so ever again even if shaking hands in public for
etiquette’s sake.
As he lay dying, Cesar had managed to roll onto his side.
For one mad minute there was a collective fear, each man suspecting the rest had
held back on the ferocity of their blows and now none of the corsages blooming
out of the white were mortal strikes. His arm curved at the elbow and he pulled
his tunic up to cover his face. No one knew why, although Brutus suspected that
he had been attempting to retreat into blackness with the hope that it was just
a dream from which he could emerge upon uncovering his eyes, Such too is old age
sometimes viewed by those in it.
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