Year: 2020

He had seen her in the flower shop, and had been captivated. Immediately, his reason for being in the flower shop no longer mattered to him, nor did the vibrant flowers clutched in his hand. All he knew in that moment was that he needed to approach her.

A perfect stranger, with a slightly tilted sunhat and curly locks of brown hair. She was dressed inconspicuously, and yet had such an aura around her than people would still be compelled to look. The soft fragrance of her perfume, paired with her exquisite appearance, turned that aura incredibly sweet. So sweet, actually, that it was almost sickening. Like the dangerous allure surrounding an exotic carnivorous plant, a suffocatingly alluring purple fog. And she had captured yet another stray bug into her trap.

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Adrian didn’t like middle school very much. The enormous blotchy birthmark, running down the left side of his face like some kind of blistering dark scar, certainly didn’t help his situation.

That guy. Panda. Black-eye. Beast. Though they manifested themselves in different ways, the gathered negativity of the student body always seemed to center around him. Once, on the road back home, Adrian caught a glimpse of a puddle filled with dried autumn leaves. Most were clustered together, but there was a single leaf that was caught in the whirlpool of the drain, swirling about alone, aimlessly, and without rest. Adrian felt that this basically summed up his daily school life.

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       Marlene wasn’t getting any sleep. She had tried therapeutic yoga positions, and when that hadn’t worked, resorted to sleeping pills. However, today was her fifth day in a row of chronic insomnia, and she was starting to become aware of the fact that she was taking many more doses than the recommended amount.

       As such, she dragged her weary body beneath the stiff hotel sheets, knowing that she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep. As Marlene stared up at the gloomy ceiling, she began wondering if it would be best to confront the problem at its source. Because, part of the problem was that whenever she closed her eyes, a vivid image of him would show up in full color, and her eyelids would snap right back open.

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“Agent oh-four?”

“Yes, sir.”

That was his name, and so he stepped forward. But when he raised his gun to the struggling individual, for the first time, his finger hesitated above the trigger.

Things were different, this time. Instead of a straw-stuffed dummy, a real person lay in his line of fire. A real, human life. 

He couldn’t do it after all.

***

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