Sickly be


Written by

Charlotte Gainsbourg – Me And Jane Doe

He spoke in tongues. Complete and utter babble is its only true description. The never approaching cul-de-sac of words and cliché chorus. And he’d speak them while waving cups full of tea through flailing arms – as if active at a podium – and it’d cause a shiver up her spine every time she would hear the faint thump of liquid hitting the cream toned carpet. Thump. Stain.

Are you prepared for death, friend? She asked this while lifting his legs to sweep away bits of bread and half-chewed pills and tiny balls of paper, formed when he’d tear strips from the newspaper and roll them up in his tongue, and then tried to spit or lob them into the open fire, but he didn’t have the energy to win. Even against his own self he’d lose. She’d ask this often, because it was an important question, but at no time in her recent memory had he understood or took notice.

“Does it matter?”

He had responded.

We got lucky and then time passed and we got unlucky. “Tell me one who had an ending any different.”

Startled by his fluidity and senses, she knew now was the time to approach his soul. She asked him was he ready and he said he was. Running blood; it’s a finite feature.

He lay stretched in the chair, kicked off and away his slippers, and adjusted the elastic on his pants which had tightened around a swollen stomach. She pressed it firmly against him and put a bullet through his temple.

She called the local police station, informed his youngest daughter that he had finally returned for brief moments and the opportunity could not be missed, cleaned up whatever she could before they came, and crossed his limp arms. She didn’t want to hassle anyone, not if she could help it. “Leave this room as neat as it was given to you,” she muttered. And she did so over and over until they came. [Purchase.]

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