The Petrichor Gazette

your hand cupped to shield your eyes from the sun, and you looked so much like your father in that photograph. A bruise was beginning to flower against your cheek, it made you look older. A cigarette dangled from my lips and with every inhale I felt a cavity yawn from within my stomach. Low and groaning, sick with power. I was enjoying it a bit, your suffering, my being the cause. I held your eye the best I could. Men stood by, watching. Polishing guns, drinking, all staring. Women peered from shop windows, and a boy and his dog hovered, wide-eyed. The blonde girl stood in a cluster of the pretty women we'd hung about with. My fingers twitched. I think I should have kissed you then. Despite myself and my disgust and our distance and the town watching. I would have liked to. To taste the stink of your breath one more time, to touch your filthy teeth with my tongue. You looked like Hell, though it matters not. I could have devoured you, all seven sins down my throat. I should have kissed you but I didn’t move. So you got on your horse and wiped your mouth on your shirtsleeve, and you no longer looked so wild and Godlike. You no longer held my beating heart in your dirty hands. I watched your face (your father’s face) turn to me one last time. The onlookers drifted away, our exchange was too silent, too unexciting. Only the boy and his dog remained. There was not a thing to stop me, not a single obstacle. We don’t live in Tombstone, we don’t know these people. I could leave with you, never come back.

Later I would see you hadn’t taken the vodka, and now it is the only proof I have of your existence, and it is nearly gone too.

You stared at me, just six feet away. I could have walked it in a moment. The sun cast a long shadow over your face, and all I could see was the dark shape of your silhouette and the pale glint of your eyes. I willed it to rain, but the sun burned on.