'Urban Lullaby'

  If the sunshine continued, the feeling of warmth in his imagination might be enough to keep him from shivering against the cold caused by blood loss: the hole in his gut might even lose its power to work on his mind and the drowsy depths of slow death.



  The bankruptcy had eaten all he'd had in the world, or so he believed; now, with his back against a trash dumpster and the hole slowly dribbling pinkish fluid, he realized that he wasn't living entirely without anything: he now had the pain of the little hole, free of charge, thanks to the stray bullet from some trigger-happy punk who decided to try and become respected by pulling a trigger.  "Wish in one hand, Shit in the other, and see which one fills up first" was his Daddy's favourite line for times like this.  Daddy had been right: the hand he was holding over the bullet hole was certainly filling up with shit; the other, clenched into a fist and pushed into his mouth to prevent any escaping noise was definitely empty.



  His mind played a loop of the events that happened prior to his current position of leaning with exhaustion against the dumpster with his hand over the newly-created eighth orifice he now guarded from the elements as if it were a newborn child.



  Henry had gotten the job referral from the day-labour office, a scant four blocks from where he currently sat in his best second-hand suit and the calf-buffed dress shoes he'd found at a garage sale for 50 cents.  Earlier in the week, his contact at the labour office had told Henry "Employers are more likely to hire someone dressed professionally."  The referrals contact was wearing a wrinkled pair of tweed pants, running shoes and a garish and oft-stained shirt, but he was already employed.



  Shaved, showered and dressed in his best, Henry had taken care to be a few minutes early for the job interview at the loans office he'd been sent to, watching the activity for a couple of minutes before going inside himself to meet with the shift manager.  As Henry was escorted from the reception area and behind the counter to confer with the HR manager, a shout from behind Henry caused him to turn when the manager did.



  "Give me the money!  Now!", yelled a guy with a pistol in his extended hand.  The receptionist dropped the telephone receiver she' been holding and followed it to the floor in self-preservation; as she slapped her hands on the tiled floor, the HR manager began to talk.



  The gun had been in mid-swing when the first shot exploded.  The HR manager took the bullet through the neck: the brief gurgle of air mixed with blood stopped the conversation with a thick "glurk" as the man stumbled back and tripped.  A small red geyser spurted from the wound as the mans torso hit the floor.



  Henry ran like an Olympic sprinter toward the back of the loans office, the red 'Exit' sign and made good time until the tray on the photocopier at mid-hall snagged the material of Henry's pants, spinning him.  Henry moved down the final ten feet of the narrow hall by back-pedalling furiously.  When his ass hit the push-bar of the heavy steel door, the sound of the gun was in the air again.  If the man with the papers he was going to run through the copier hadn't dropped his paperwork and fallen back through the doorway he was walking through, Henry might have escaped the .9 mm round and found the alley, unscathed and in need of nothing more than a coffee.



  Now, with the sound of approaching sirens singing in his ears like an urban lullaby, Henry's eyelids slipped closed and his clenched fist relaxed as his torso slid along the metal trash dumpster, in the sleep of death…