The Marble Penguin
The marble penguin sat silent and alone.
On the nightstand beside the penguin, a gold watch glinted in the sharply angled light. The watch’s second hand ticked, echoing a solitary urgency, as if the marble penguin had a heart that beat quickly, rhythmically, never needing to be wound in light of lithium providence.
I approached the bed. You never noticed. Bacchus and Orpheus had paid their nightly visit to your raucous existence hours before.
The antique Beretta, taken from the locked box beside the cabinet that housed the altar to your dissolution—bottles of rum and whiskey—failed to glint in the sharply angled light. I fired once, and the bullet took you in the brain.
I screamed, dropped the little pistol.
You simply bled. Time seemed to stand still. The rhythmic, second hand heartbeat of the gold watch actually seemed to stop.
And the marble penguin—now heartless, beyond cold—simply stared.
