vanilla pops and banana skies

Friday, July 14, 2006

10:20 PM

assassin.

Jerry did not know how to count. One, two, three, up to nine, on his fingers, only because no one had ever taught him how to. Not that he needed to, besides, he had always been told that true men did not have to count. The first was always the worst, but then everything else was the same after that - the second, the third, the fourth, the hundredth. There was the resonating thunder of power and the heat-swollen, hole-ridden heart and everything else physical. At first he tried to keep count, but he ran out of fingers and toes and noses and anyway, true men didn't count.

It was the nature of it all. He couldn't grasp the concept of anything going past nine. In his mind, there was never a ten, because he knew only to count to nine. In a way it kept him innocent, he was forever new to the job because he was forever at nine. In a way it made him more careful and more aware, and when the hot blood stained his wrist it was only victory if he could count to nine.

Nine it was, that drew his sword, nine that sank into his skin. Nine, because of a moment of carelessness that swallowed ten into another world. Nine, because he had five fingers on his left hand, and four on this right.

True men didn't need to count. You were dead before you could finish.

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