robbers ( balice )
BANG. i donât want to do this anymore. BANG.
heâs breathing hard as they approach the liquor store, stopping to pull on their disguises before they reach the pool of light cast by the fluorescent shop sign. he tries to catch one last look at her face, pretty, picture-perfect, impenetrable. a face that belonged in the glossy pages of a magazine, eight inches by ten. a face he canât leave alone, wonât leave him alone. a face that has the same power over him as her gun has over other people.Â
it slips under a mask made to resemble a white rabbit - he had told her they had to look inconspicuous, hard to describe, and what disguise does she pick? animal masks (her balaclava had chafed at her skin the last time, she says) - and a second later, his own face becomes a mournful stag.Â
the rabbit turns to face him for one, fleeting second, before it turns back and she walks into the store, gun drawn up.
BANG. just one more time. BANG. one last time. BANG.
he hasnât been sleeping lately. keeps hearing sirens which frighten him awake. keeps dreaming of holding her body, riddled with bullets. but when he wakes up, sheâs there, a cigarette drawn lazily between her lips before she plucks it out and places it between his.Â
(he never smoked before he met her. he doesnât tell her this.)
it was fun, in the beginning, when it was a crazy idea that just happened to have escaped into reality. aliceâs crazy idea. they were spinning each other around by the hand when she whispered it into his ear, the promise of giving each other the world. it was fun. in the beginning.
he still relents when she asks him for one last heist, will do anything if sheâs the one asking. but itâs always one last heist with her. heâs not certain if there will ever be one last heist.
BANG. fine. BANG. one more time. BANG. just one more. BANG.
the stag stares back at him when he looks up at the mirror in the corner of the store, one of those mirrors that bulge outward and distorts reality, makes everything seem as though it is receding from one central point. the boy manning the till still hasnât noticed them yet. god, heâs just a boy.
the other two people in the store, customers, also havenât noticed them yet. a short, stocky man whose shoulders are so broad he has to squeeze himself in between the aisles, and a woman whose physical appearance is so ambiguous she could have been anything from twenty to forty-five. she is the first one to realise, shrieking and shrinking back as she catches sight of the rifle in aliceâs arms. the man looks up at this and backs into a shelf in alarm, causing a line of snack bags to cascade onto the floor.
the boy is the last to notice, and by then alice is already charging straight at him, mouthing off as she orders him to open the till, donât call for help or iâll shoot you. bambi keeps his eyes trained on the customers, wary should they do something, the man with the broad shoulders especially.
suddenly, he can hear sirens. is he dreaming again? he can see the flash-flash-flash of the police lights in the store window, and his heart is pounding harder than it ever has before. how are they going to get out of this, how were the police here so quickly?Â
BANG. the police are here. BANG. alice, what do we do? BANG. just shoot them too! BANG.
he isnât the only one becoming hysterical, he can see it in aliceâs eyes (if not her whole face, obscured as it is by the mask) and in the way her hands are trembling as she grips the rifle. âwhat did you do, you idiot, what did you do?! i told you not to-â BANG. the boy goes down.
the woman is screeching, the man bolting for the door. BANG BANG. both of them go down. and suddenly thereâs gunshots ringing everywhere and they canât possibly all be from aliceâs gun, the store window shatters and thatâs when he realises, and he runs at alice, preparing to bring her down to the ground.
BANG. everythingâs gone wrong. BANG. what are you doing? BANG. bambi, BAMBI... ?! BANG. BAMBI!
heâs groaning on the floor of the store now, holding his hand to his side. heâs not sure, but he thinks thatâs alice he can hear, voice high and hysterical. something warm is dripping out from between his fingers. sheâs pulling him towards the back of the store, probably hoping for an alternate way out, and bambi struggles to support himself, face scrunched up in pain.Â
theyâre stumbling out the back way, and thereâs police cars here too, but somehow, by some fucking bizarre stroke of luck, alice manages to get them running through an alleyway the police havenât blocked, an indirect route to where they parked their get-away van. her voice is a mantra as she helps him into the back, gets into the front; her mask has fallen off and the look on her face is killing him faster. the van peels away from the curb.
BANG. stay with me. BANG. stay with me, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay. BANG.










