James

Flash Fiction Contest

Prompt for 3/16/2010
Write a story that includes the words: bones, star and tower.

Word Count: 299

James

I fling the perpetrator by the shoulders, his chair rocks back swiftly and his back thuds against the damp cracked wall.  This guy really has it coming to him. Balancing on two stilts with his arms tied behind the chair, there is no way he’s struggling. There is no way he’s getting out of this, especially this time.

So I’ve taken my own measures. Who in the right mind wouldn’t? He took everything from me: my job, my house, my wife: my life.

I lean over him, one hand against the wall, face down into his eyes, the other hand resting the cold iron of the .45 lazily on his collarbone.  With the spotlight beaming from above us, a large globule of sweat drips down and perishes on his face like a bursting star.

“Isn’t this great, James?” I exclaim vacuously. “We are in the exact same place where it all started; The same tower where everything just began to crumble down. Where you started to take everything away from me, James!”

I give in to his moans and remove the cloth from his mouth, “Something to say?”

James splutters his reply, “How can you blame everything on me? You think that you losing everything is because of me? I tried to help her! You are so mistak…”, lost interest: Cloth back in his hole and I shatter one of my knuckle bones against the rotten wall in frustration.

You think some cowboy can just come waltzing into your own life, take the promotion that you were supposed to get and not even try hard enough to save the only thing that matters to you in the whole world? Surgeon my ass. 

My Smith and Wesson rises up to his head.

“My brother, James. I’m sorry. You took everything”.