A last salute
- Locked due to inactivity on Aug 4, '16 4:23pm
Thread Topic: A last salute
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His demented squawk ripped viciously through my body like a bloodcurdling lion, claws and teeth piercing through flesh. The sound of newly changed tyres on pebbles and cement attacked my skull. Uninvited, his scream pounded from within me and like the prisoner I should have been, his scream thrashed against iron bars without so much as a dent to escape.
This was wrong. All of it. I was to be the one jail, executed in front of the snickering crowd. Not my dear brother. It was an accident. The bloody trail came with a one way ticket.
My dry, rosy eyes took in the scene from hell. In front, the crowd swarmed like angry wasps and the click of cameras lashed their venom. Before I turned, I gave my brother a last salute. And like that I ran like a coward.
Sweat tickled the nape of my neck and under my arms. When my legs began to shake slightly I pressed on. Finally my ragged breath caught in my parched throat and my quivering legs could no longer hold me straight. My cracked lips dripped thin saliva and I collapsed on the dirt. I was a grown man but I looked like a small child who had sulked when theyd lost their favourite toy. In the shape of a helpless foetus I lay, for hours, in a thick tangible nightmare, relaying the murder. The murder I was responsible for.
I woke to the soft buzz of traffic and a nearby lawn mower. Cars honked their horns in the distant and angry drivers cursed. Reluctantly I stood up, dusting the reddish dirt free from my pants. My throat was parched. I needed water. I scuffed my hefty feet along the path and after a good 20 minutes found a bubbler, rusted sore. The water that came out was clear, cool.
I looked up and smiled a toothy grin, my silver filling reflecting the harsh light. Two children ran past giggling, their smiles cheeky and full of life. Life that had been drained out of me and forced out of my dead brother. I rolled the word death on my tongue. It felt sticky, putrid but possessed a small thrill. What was the afterlife?
The park bench in the distance looked appealing, even with the worn paint visibly peeling. I walked over and collapsed down, shoulders hunched inwards. The newspaper beside me had begun to curl on the corners and the writing already fading, though the date claimed it was from the day before.
My heart choked. A bitter distaste swelled large in my throat. It was my photo. Only a block from the court room. Surely it couldnt be me. Id thought Id left unnoticed. Safe from the eyes of prying photographers and greedy journalists. But there was no confusion in my eyes when I peered now. I thin trickle of sweat snaked from my forehead.
The police were after me and who knows how long Id have until I ended up in a stinking jail; full of prostitutes, whores, mad men. I looked upward. The sky was clear, blue, not a cloud to disturb the serene view.
There was no mistaking the sound of bitter sirens as they intruded. Birds stopped twittering and the worms dived deep, back in to the soil. The police cars inched closer with each second until I could smell the bullets odour, leaking into the air. I ran but I was not fast enough. Id reached the other end of the park, but just as the cars veered the corner. I could see the women at the wheel, clearly now. Her mouth was itched into a smirk and her eyes shone with a foreign ferocity. I had less than a second before the police would pour out of those cars, handcuffing and humiliating me for all to see. A truck came rolling towards me. The man was distracted, probably texting a girlfriend, fiance, who knows? Its wheels churned the dust in a rhythmical pattern. With one more look at that beautiful sky I stepped out. I was thumped back and the air was whipped out of me. I heard the crack of bones and the greedy taring of ripe flesh. My flesh. -
You're good. Like, really good. Keep on writing.
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Thanks! :)
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You're welcome. It's so hard to find writers like you these days.
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