mOOn platOOn

Copyright © 2009 Steve Games First serial rights released to SoulCast. Photos, graphics, contents and characters may not be replicated for use outside SoulCast or commercial use in the open market or on other websites without express permission of the author. All rights reserved

ghOst mOOn / pOst nOir: MURDER & DEATH

O

A murder, and every reporter on the scene – blonde, pretty, using their looks to get ahead, complaining about having to do five live feeds in one day – is like the victim. Like my first GF

O

I found out yesterday when I was turning the corner down the street to my place. The networks and local news had their super-antennae vans lining the street, cameras and microphones everywhere. Two theories struck me simultaneously: celebrity sighting or murder. Or maybe both!

Then for a second I wondered if I had been found out and they were all waiting for – me?

No, it was not yet my time. It was hers. Curious, I approached one news crew and a portly lighting guy was more than happy to tell me what was going on, but warned me “You aren’t gonna like it.”

“I can take it. I watched my kid get born and cut the damn cord. The doctor who delivered told me that if I could take that, I could take anything.”

“One of the neighbors asked me,” he warned, “and I told her and she got real upset. Real upset.”

“You’re good,” I smiled. “Stop teasing.”

“A woman was murdered. They found her [CENSORED] and she lived up there,” he said, pointing to an apartment.

A woman was murdered, not yet a week ago, across the street.

I felt nothing.

Once, I wanted my grandma to die. There was a time.

Everything else was new. Freedom on the highway, freedom on a beautiful

girl’s body.

And now that she’s been gone for ever so long I miss her and I’m almost her myself. My grandma.

“Why don’t you just die?” I wondered inside as she would live on and on

against every chance or reason to perish. I couldn’t be free, really free, truly free

until she was gone.

Or could I?

But when she died I wanted her back. And I wept.

The hundredth time a story’s told I’ve heard it all before. We talk in circles. Nag

in circles, haunt in circles. She needed me and no, I could not leave.

Always threatening to die. Stop teasing me!

Everything else is new. Her hair. Her lips. The world. Only you are old.

A damned helicopter circles the area just up the street for about 20 minutes, round and round, shining its beam on something. Can’t the fuckers hover? Around and around and around in circles and finally it just flies away.

Then a cop drives down the street.

My kid gave me a sword for my last birthday. A real sword, with a sheathe and a belt. I put it on tonight when I went for a walk. Covered it with my jacket, all except for the end of the sheathed blade, and drew it out with a “shiiiing” a few times for rehearsal.

Last year, an old man was murdered in the street on a simple nightly stroll, about a mile away. Now this. And for the old man, at least I walked by the scene, I looked around, I wondered, I felt for him.

Perhaps it’s the nature of the victim. Immediately the TV worker disclosed tonight’s victim’s stature as a woman who used her looks to get ahead, and the chief suspect as a likely predator akin to a memorable serial killer from a few years back…

Yeah, she asked for it, didn’t she? Predators gotta have prey…

Was it simply youth that shielded me from a harsh reality until I was in my mid-twenties? There are killers among us.

I found out when I moved to my first really BIG city. Back home, a murder a month was big news. But in the Big City, a murder a day was TBX (to be expected).

Ultimately that’s bugging me. I take murder as a fact of life.

Tonight a van is looking for someone. It even follows me down the street, then comes around the block and the driver, a stunned looking fellow, stares at my backlit silhouette for a long minute while I stare mysteriously back wondering “What the hell do you want?” He drives away, but I spy him circling the block several times…

My cat is nervous.

My kid suddenly got sick tonight. Stomach upset. Unusual. I ate everything he ate. Did everything with him all day. He’d been eager to see the TV show that was just starting when he had to excuse himself! My kid is rarely sick.

Quiet across the street later on. Down to one news van, then it pulls away. All the neighbors who wanted to be interviewed have had their moment.

I never saw her. At least, not that I remember. I think I would remember her. But there are so many. Even every reporter on the scene – blonde, pretty, using their looks to get ahead, complaining about having to do five live feeds in one day – was like the victim. Like my first girl.

I would’ve done something to save her if I could have. Whether she deserved it or not. My neighbors who know me know I’m an action figure.

Which doesn’t mean much to a ghost.

I’m sorry for the jokes, for being flip - I’m sorry, and I know you didn’t deserve this.

Now rest. Everything should be okay for you from now on. Eternally young.

But for me? I am old. And past a thousand kisses, a thousand fucks, and a thousand fights. And I have a son of my own.

Does he wonder “Why do you live?” Will he be free only when I am gone?

Do we live in circles?

Oh, I loved. Loved warmly. Yet something changed, and the world was new…

Waking up 24,999 times is routine, but on my twenty-five thousandth morn, will he wonder…

“Why don’t you die?”

- OO