Repeat

Gambit

On a moonlit Inwood Park softball field, just south of the white cliffs that mark the boundary to the Bronx, the sounds of night abate as a murder finishes. And the cat purrs along with the constant hum of the city. The city surrounds victim and criminal and cat as blood drains from gaping wounds. The wounds are from a wicked sharp blade protruding from the fist of a fat man who couldn't stand it that her attitude meant no. The cat is from somewhere else, just visiting really, far too late to actually help, but willing to make a difference.

And that fucking difference means the cat purrs. The cat ripples with purple highlights, like it could be neon come alive, flashing, here, look, a show.

Could there be more to this fine feline? Just wait and see.

"Are you real?" And Stan's stomach grumbles thinking about an all-you-can-eat shrimp cocktail, he could get just off the Vegas strip, and it'd be then he knows there is no doubt he is a sick fuck, hungry at a time like this.

Her death looks painful, the cat says, using a telepathy of some sort to enter Stan's thoughts. Not knowing the mechanism for such an invasion, Stan just accepts it and agrees. If he had normal thinking, maybe he'd feel bad, but that was the point, after all, the excuse for feigning insult at his victim's upturned nose. She still had a face after all, where some weren't that lucky.

He thinks of the last one, ol' what's-her-face-from-Cincinnati, who should have been grateful he was so nice to her.

"Just get it over with, you fucking pervert."

And he knows she meant fuck her and that just made it worse because that part of him didn't work. Her face would be stuck in this same permanent grimace if he hadn't bashed it in as punishment for making him feel bad about it. She still got the same work done on her with this same knife. It's the why after all.

You like routine, don't you, the cat purrs- the vibrations seeming to send the shimmering purple light out into the inky black night sky.

Like daddy said, "Routine is what makes a day successful."

Stan is new to New York City, but this is certainly not his first time doing something like this. Actually looking like this might just be his thing. He stands face to face with yet another fresh corpse and as the last bit of life leaves its legs, and she begins to slink to the ground. He lets her go so gravity can do its thing.

The body falls with a wet plop.

You don't feel bad?

He shakes his head, finding himself unshocked by what he has done, "Survival over morals."

Is that something else dad would say?

No, Stan thinks, it's something he would say. He pictures dad, spittle flying from his mouth, bits of yellow rice and onion, "I don't want what I got to do." He stunk sweet like a bottle he left when he visited. It was best not to argue, confused or not.

Poor ol' dad, look what you finally made Little-Pudding-Poo-Stanley do.

But dad is dead, and he didn't do this, I did. I murdered this girl because, "I am not a fucking pervert!"

Then why did she run from you like you are a fucking pervert?

The memory seems to lay within the purple shimmer of light as it illuminates the park surrounding the cat.

"Hey, pretty lady."

"Fuck off, dirtbag."

He feels at peace with his actions because of that rejection. How could she have known? Does he wear it on his face he guesses because what else could it be?