#free write flash

‘It’s just not fair!’ I butt my head against the wall. Perseus looks at me, amused.

‘What’s eating you, cow brains? You’ve got lots of room to roam, an endless supply of meat, and no one to tell you what to do. What more could you possibly want?’

I turn to him, tears streaming from my eyes. I can barely get the words out.

‘I’m horny.’

He laughs. ‘Well, of course you are. You’re a bull. What did you expect?’

I shake my head. ‘No, I mean I’m sexually frustrated. I’m the only one of my kind and no one wants to shag a half breed human.’

‘I don’t know about that, some of us Greeks are pretty perverse…’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yeah. At the last feast for Dionysus, I saw someone fuck a harp. Trust me, if you’ve got orifices, you are getting laid.’

‘You think so?’

‘I know so. Come on, let me take you to a party. I’ll see if we can hook you up.’

‘Great. Wait, hang on, how are you going to find your way out of here?’

‘I got the princess to give me a ball of string to uncurl to mark a path.’

‘You crafty bastard.’

‘Hey, you bang a princess, you can get her to give you the world.’

‘Neat. Ooh, do you think I could get with her?’

‘Not in a million years. Besides, she’s mine. I’m not letting you get anywhere near her.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Yeah. Honestly, I swear you lay so much as a single hoof on her, I’ll slice you into beef wellington.’

‘You and what army?’

‘Oh, I don’t need an army, I’ve got my sword.’

‘That won’t do you any good…’

He thrusts it straight through me. It definitely did him some good.

Ow…

I stick a cloth into the glass. I twist. It squeaks. I clean it for the clown staring at me across the bar.

"What'll it be mate?" He isn't a conventional clown. His hair is purple. We usually get gingers in here. He has tears painted on his left cheek as well. Black, like he's killed a few men.

"Would you choose for me?" he answers with a normal voice, not a broken, helium filled one.

"Why do you want me to choose?" I ask.

Kid gloved fingers stroke an invisible beard on his chin. He raises an eyebrow, hums and then the sound of rushing air twinges my ears. A yellow balloon inflates behind his head, harboring an exclamation mark.

"Because you're unhappy!" he replies, with a smile that stretches his scarlet frown into a strange expression.

I sigh. "I'm not unhappy. I've had a long day."

"Ah but you are unhappy. These days are long because you stretch them with those polish and push hands of yours. Pull more pints for the clients climbing in through the pipes from outside, you strive to serve seven 'til nine, in the evening, with no sense of unreasoning alarm bell dinging in your head to tell you, YOU'RE WASTING YOUR LIFE! Seriously, uneasy seeing you fall apart at seams, streams of your inner thought lusting for the colour drapes, take a rollercoaster ride on my tongue if you want friend, we can glide into a new life for you and those glass fondling fingers, whaddaya say?"  

He hands me his card, which states his name is Riddles The Clown. The frown on his face has reversed and is now a smile spanning his white painted jawline.

I shake my head. "I don't want your therapy. I'm just tired. What do you want to drink?" Why couldn't he just be the regular, depressive clowns we get in here.

"It was worth a shot," he answers and his grin falls back in to frown state. His posture slumps and purple party poppers blow as he sits down. They make the sound of trumpets tooting a minor chord. "I'll take a pint of absinthe, please. Double. Rejected help is something I could do with forgetting." He headbutts the bar and his red nose squeaks.

Many question why I paint with blood. I thought it was quite obvious, but apparently not. When the Earth began there was no paint, so instead the ancient civilizations used blood. It wasn’t seen as cruel, it wasn’t seen as inhumane, it was seen as a form of self-expression, of marking the times. I have a warehouse full of blood in paint tins, there they are preserved in my extra large chiller.

Today I’ve brought a fresh tin back to my home studio; I have to do it in the day because the vampires come sniffing after me at night. My studio is fairly modest; there is a door and a canvas. Today I’m using a human canvas, I have him tied up on a mock crucifix, arms spread wide. Much like Jesus, tonight he will be a saviour:

Through my artwork and his participation we shall unveil the key players in current London gang culture. I will call it ‘Ogre Battle’.

I remove a spoon from my pocket and pry open the paint lid. From the same pocket I remove my remove my wire wool brush and dip it into the blood. I turn to my participant, to Claude. A tear bursts from my eye and runs down my cheek.

I had always been told that if you’re going to be late to a party, you better make one hell of an entrance. What I had in mind wasn’t exactly walking through the doors with two girls on each arm, and it wasn’t having the DJ play my song as I enter. No, what I had in mind was a little more... explosive.

That’s how you get their attention, a little pyrotechnics. I enter the room as indoor fireworks flood the doorway. Every eye in the room turns to look at me. I adjust my watch and pull down the sleeve of my ted baker blazer as the sparks fall behind me. Now that is how you make an entrance. Now just one of those sparks should land in the right place and...

A chain reaction starts. In twenty minutes a meeting that will decide the fate of half my city will vote to tear it down. These are not nice men. These men are only out looking for profit. Soon, these men will be dead and my city will be saved. But no one will trace this back to me and my entrance. I am just a wealthy child of an industrialist. Some may have the audacity to call me a terrorist. I would call myself well informed.

She’s here. The woman who took the stranger, my stranger away from me is kneeling at my feet. The barrel of her own gun is pressing against her head. It’s in my hand. A chill fist wraps around my heart when I remember this is the weapon that killed the stranger.

Emma looks up at me. Her grey eyes are welling with tears now. I want to believe that she’s sorry. I want her to fall apart like I have. But all I can see is hollowness there. How does a person become so empty?

“What are you waiting for?” she asks, almost begging. “Do it.”

Without thinking I’ve pulled back the hammer. The bullet in the chamber will close the circle. Emma is the last crack in the wall now. The last loose end. At least that’s what I believe. She has no business being alive, in this true present, while the stranger is dead.

“I’m not a killer. I’m not you.”

“Olivia please, do it. I’m begging you now. Kill me! All these things, in my head. They hurt. Please!”

“Why should I?”

Somewhere in the deep darkness I see in Emma’s eyes, I see it. A solitary spark, of....something.

“Because he would.”

Maybe I’ll regret it in the future. Years from now when I’m old and grey perhaps I’ll think back and ask myself why. It might hurt me to even think about. One day.

“Marko!”

“Polo!”

“Marko!”

“Polo!”

“MARKO!”

“POLO!”

“MARKO! HELP, I’M DROWNING!”

“POLO!”

“MARKO! PLEASE, I CAN’T SWIM, OH-“

“POLO!”

“MAR-KO! MY-GO-D”

“POLO!”

“MARKO! MARKO! THERE’S A SHARK! MARKO!”

“POLO!”

…

“Polo!”

…

She thought new shoes would change things.

Thought the silver Jimmy Choo Sling backs would make her forget.

She thought her husband cheated on her.

She thought about Hawaii, Paris and Belgium as possible getaway locations.

She thought about the gun in her bag.

She thought about her mother’s tears and her father’s jail time.

She thought about five years in the future and where she’d be.

She thought about a quiet man who penned romantic mystery novels.

She thought she looked good in the shoes,

If only her ankles weren’t so chubby…

She thought it was the only option left.

She thought this as she walked into the bank where he worked.

She thought about it, looked him in the eyes and began to weep.

She thought that the safety lock was on the trigger,

As she pressed it, shooting a hole in her upper left thigh.

She thought what an idiot she’d been as the ambulance took her away,

She thought about her new shoes, how they’d be taken from her,

Like everything else soon would be.

She thought she was going to prison, that she’d be a dyke within the week.