Last Bender

And so it went for them. Time passed while they planned their escape to Alaska, plans achieved through intense and constant argument. They ate a vegetarian diet mostly with the occasional fish for which they had both developed a craving, sometimes polishing off an entire two-pound pond trout in a meal. Weeks of chilly rain, [...]

Veronica was relieved that the storm would prevent her from going to Les Jardeen. She was tired and felt like going to bed. More and more that was all she felt like doing. Paregane was supposed to be non-addictive, without side effects. That was what they had promised and while at first she didn’t believe [...]

Felix leaned his bike against hers and descended the stair. The ride home, full of food and happy, free of the job, still giddy from the convivial bar crowd, had been over rain-washed streets, in the calm, cool aftermath of a major storm. He drank a glass of water, brushed his teeth and swallowed his [...]

Bryson lay in a tub of cold water beneath the broad and shapely crown of an oak tree. Hanging off a wooden coat stand was her white cotton bathrobe and a hemp sarong tie-dyed blue, pink and green. A side table to her left supported an ashtray and a bunch of hand rolled cigarettes, and [...]

“There’ve been a few changes, Bryson. Don’t be alarmed.” Bradlee rose up behind the black desk like a vapor plume at night, and pushed a paper clip around. Bryson assessed his office. He had a wall of monitors behind him, and he faced two walls of tinted windows, with a view of the world. No [...]

Bryson peered through the scope and watched the fine rain beat down on ponchos. The enlarged faces and bodies of people entered the building. “Might as well hit them all,” she said. There was a series of puffs and she watched them flinch slightly as the tiny darts struck their necks. Boyle put down the [...]

After about twenty minutes of actual sleep, Felix awoke. He lay in bed looking up at the lights as they intensified into synthetic morning sun. There were things to do but he had no firm sense of them yet and lay there for a few moments free of any memory of what had happened. He [...]

Peter Nguyen lived with his boyfriend Moises Cruz and their friend and former lover Promethea Donne, in a studio apartment in a 25story glass and ceramic building on the corner of 40th and Eighth. It was a run down building in a bad area but it was cheap, not unimportant to three unemployed actors working [...]

Hours before the others awoke Felix could no longer stand pretending to sleep but was afraid to awaken them by getting up. Weak sun filtered by the blinds filled the room. He watched them snore quietly away and took On the Road from his bag but there wasn’t enough light to read easily and his [...]

Felix stood outside of Max Mbeke’s office with a pit in his stomach. All the way there his fantasies of vengeance had intensified. He would have his day in court, with a jury and a judge and lawyers. The executives and doctors would be made to confess what they had done. He would prepare for [...]