My First Impulse Was to Flee
ninja assassin on the prowl in west LA- twine marks on only one wrist
- they said he was not the type of person
- scabs and scars
- “What’s the matter?” screamed the ladies.
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My first impulse was to flee the scene as quickly and quietly as a ninja assassin on the prowl in west LA, to get far away from the stench of burnt flesh, and all of the blood. But I had been on the run for so, so long, and I was exhausted. I felt like a man with twine marks on only one wrist, which is the Contrarian way of saying ‘burning the candle at both ends.’
I locked the door to the rocket surgery to make sure no one walked in on me while I slept, then I curled up on the operating table and took a nap. When people described my brother Jason, they said he was not the type of person who could sleep just anywhere, that he was very finicky about where he bedded down, but they would never say that about me. The slab of stainless steel was an island in a sea of Absinthia’s blood, and upon it I slept like a baby.
When I awoke, I spent a few minutes counting all my scabs and scars, cataloging the myriad ways I now differed from my twin. It wasn’t just our sleep habits that would enable people to tell us apart any longer.
Self-examination complete, I leapt from the table and onto Absinthia’s desk chair. My momentum and the chair’s excellent casters carried me away from the gore, and around a corner. Here was Absinthia’s apartment, replete with bed and shower. If only I’d explored last night I could have slept in comfort. At least I could still get clean.
After my ablutions, I rifled through Absinthia’s closet, hoping to find something a little more dignified than my calico pinafore. In addition to the doctor’s clothes, none of which would fit me, I found a cache of men’s clothing that fit me a little too well. It was as if they’d been tailored for me, which meant they’d probably been tailored for Jason. But the shoes were too small.
“What’s the matter?” screamed the ladies. That’s what I call my intuition, my gut feelings. ‘The ladies’ had never let me down. And right now they were trying to tell me something important. If the shoes were too small for me, they were too small for Jason. That meant, the ladies assured me, that these clothes had been tailored for my younger brother Jim.
I froze.
bonus points for using them in order