Busted Flush

“It’s okay,” Nick said. Her heart was now his and it calmed slightly, but only slightly. “I’ll take care of it.” He stood up, steeling his fingers on the dresser top, then surveyed the room, the wreckage of the night before. Reverently, he retrieved Aliyah’s earrings and shirt, placing them neatly in the ermine-fringed mail purse, then less reverently, he picked up the condom by its edge and stalked across the hall.

After three sharp raps, Jonathan opened the door, looking disheveled and even more hungover than Nick felt. “You left something.”

Jonathan sheepishly took the condom, and looked even more sheepish as the trapped wasps roused themselves, crawling out the bottom and buzzing up the leg of Jonathan’s boxers. “Uh, thanks, uh . . . Ellen?” Jonathan’s green eyes flicked to the dress, then the hat.

“Nick.” He pushed the fedora out of his eyes. “We need to talk. Man to man.”

“Man to man?”

“I’m being nice about it. I could say ‘man to bug.’ ” Nick pushed his way into the room, standing on tiptoes to look Jonathan in the eye. “A real man doesn’t treat a lady that way. Do you have any idea how upset Ellen is?”

Nick, please, you don’t have to make a big deal—

“Yes, I do,” snapped Nick. “A real man never treats a lady that way, and Elle is a lady. Do you know what I’d give to be able to touch her, hold her, just once? And you . . .” He fixated on Jonathan’s small paunch. “God, man, don’t you ever work out?”

Jonathan sucked in his gut and a cloud of fat wasps liposuctioned their way out of his navel and buzzed menacingly about his midsection. “Back off.”

“You’re forgetting who you’re dealing with, aren’t you?” Nick raised his hand and formed a ball of pure lightning floating on his fingertip. “My ace name was Will-o’-Wisp.” As punctuation, he let his entire body limn itself in St. Elmo’s fire.

Jonathan’s eyes went wide and his fat wasps were even more horrified, funneling down his navel and hiding themselves as his love handles.

“Do we have a problem?” asked a voice from the hall.

Nick turned and Ellen saw Bubbles, slightly plumper but still recognizably supermodel Michelle Pond. “No, miss.” Nick let his will-o’-wisp ground itself into his fingertip, blanking the rest of the charge as well. “I was just telling Jonathan here how a gentleman treats a lady.”

Michelle looked to Jonathan, who still stood there, holding the condom.

Nick turned his back to him, searching her features. “You’d be Michelle?”

“That or Bubbles.” She gave him a quick up and down. “Whoever you are, we don’t have time for this. Harriet has just changed course. She’s headed right for New Orleans.”

Double Helix

YE BRUTISH AMONG THE PEOPLE, WHEN WILL YE BE WISE

Melinda M. Snodgrass

MORNING IN NIGERIA. I only have time for a few impressions. The way the edges of the leaves seem to gleam golden in the rising sun, the sweat that’s already itching in my beard, the rich smell of wood smoke and coffee, and the rank odor of urine and the throat-clogging reek of shit.

The Radical has his back to me, shoulders hunched as he grips his dick, sighing with relief at the first pee of the morning. I can hear the piss pattering on the leaves in the bottom of the latrine trench. I want to rip his head off with 750 rounds per minute, but he’s not alone in this morning ritual. A soldier standing next to him spots me. I don’t have time for the careful aim. Instead I bring the Heckler and Koch G36 up to my shoulder, aim for the largest target—his back—and depress the trigger.

The stream of .223 rounds vomit from the barrel. I stitch my way up his back hoping to hit the kidneys, spleen, lungs, and spine. The shirt flies into blood-spattered rags, and the smell of gunpowder trumps even sewage. The force of the bullets throws Weathers into the trench. I change targets, and fire a short burst into the soldier. I risk a quick glance into the trench. Rivulets of blood trickle around the turds and stain the wet ground. The Radical’s face has gone slack and smooth, the lids fallen over the eyes, forever hiding that mad glitter.

A sudden memory of Weathers’s face gentled by love intrudes. Soldiers are converging on the latrine trench. I jump into the Between hearing in my mind a woman/child’s cry.

“Dadeeee.”

Flint is waiting in his office. I’m still wreathed with the warm scent of gunpowder. On the desk a silver carafe exhales steam like a soft breath. It carries the smell of fresh-brewed coffee. My chief holds out a plate of ginger scones.

“All tidied up?” he asks in the low whisper.

“Yes.” I take a bite of scone, and feel crumbs drop. I brush them out of my beard, and decide to transform. I hate facial hair, it always makes me feel dirty when I’m sporting it.