The Decision

Somehow, she'd managed to marry all three of them. Without their knowledge. And after they found out, some how, she was such a muse, that none of them could live without her.

Neither the musician, the painter, nor the poet.

All three of them sat around a table and stared at the gun.

So this is how the decision was going to be made.

It was hot. And next to the revolver laid two bullets. Winking back at them in that goddamned afternoon heat.

All three of them were down to their shorts. With t-shrits tightly wrapped around their heads to catch the sweat leaking from their tar black dreads. The anxiety didn't help.

Anya spit his tobacco onto the dusty wooden floor. Sweat trickled down the cheek and armpit. And melted the crack of his ass.

Chukwu lifted his foot and wiggled off his shoe. Then pulled an old, crooked cigarette from out his sock. And lit it with his last match.

"Fuck," he said quietly, which turned to a yell in the silence.

Then he looked out the window.

"One window. One cigarette. One match. One bullet.-"

"One gun!" Aziza cut-in, snatching the gun and bullet from off the table.

He started loading it.
Chukwu looked to Anya. And on another exhale said,

"Anya, how old are you today?"

"27"

"You know, if you die today, your artwork will be famous"

"Why's that?"

"I dunno. That's just what happens when you have artwork and die at the age of 27"

Anya looked to Aziza, who in-turn looked to Chukwu.

Aziza growled.

"Fuck that! Can we just get this fucking over with?! It's bad enough I'm spending my last few precious moments on this God-forsaken planet in an old shack with you two nuts. And I'm hot!"

Aziza heaved out a heavy sigh as if he were a coffee filter, filtering out the pacifism and retaining the anger.

Anya turned his attention back to Chukwu,

"Well, I'm a poet"

There was silence.

"No matter what age I die at, my work will be famous. Just so long as I die first!"

And then they both laughed hard.

"I hate your poems" Aziza snarled, "Their always too long!"

"What about my stories?"

"I hate your stories" Chukwu cut-in, "Their always too short"

"Oh.."

Anya was lost for words. So he looked defeated and spat again. This time in a jug housed near the door way entrance.

Chukwu leaned back and his chair croaked.

That's when Aziza slammed the gun on the table.

"Fuck! Guys, we doin this?"

"Yes. Yes. Let's start" Chukwu said, pulling forward from his lean.

And it was silent for a moment.

Then Aziza lifted the revolver as if it weighed a ton, and held it shakily to his head.

"O.K." He whispered.

The barrel pressed hard against the wet head wrap, squeezing out a few drops of cold sweat. Then he narrowed his eyes to the blades of sunlight spotting the table from the window.

"O.K." He said again.

And then he squinted his eyes and began analyzing that sunlight.

Chukwu sighed.

"OK. OK?! Give't'ere kid"

"Huh?"


"The gun. Hand it over. It's going to take you forever to pull that damn trigger. This shit could take all day. And I'm hot!"

Aziza stared at him with a questioning look. Forcing Chukwu to reach over that table and yank it out his hand.

Chukwu settled back in his seat and gave the revolver a once over. Then he took a hit.

"Here we go."

and pressed hard against his temple.




It took a half an hour but they finally came down to a decision.

Anya exited out the back room of the old starving artist cafe.
From his white t-shirt to the crinkled, cargo shorts taped to his thighs, he was drenched in sweat.
A dirty cigarette dangled between his lips. Hanging on the brink of extinction.

He walked down the stairs, past the mundane patrons, past the hand waving clerk, and out the door.

It was five pm in the city
The sun was bright.
And the heat wave stuck him like a hot knife.
It showered him, almost mercilessly, with heat and more sweat.
Anya scrunched his face up as if he were on the toilet.
Anya sat down at a broken table and pulled out a wod of old newspapers from his back pants pocket. and discarded the bundle in a trash can beside him.

Then he opened a notebook, pulled a pen creased between the pages, and stared at it. His cigarette had gone out.

There was half lit cigarette staring at him from an ash trey. Anya picked it out of the ash and pressed it to the tip of his cigarette until it began to glow.

He hid himself behind things like books and chess, and opera and poetry. He was the shell of an idea he once had as a kid and got stuck. There was a brief pause, at that moment, where he sat there holding on to the half-lit cigarette.

The two people who understood him most in this world, were now gone.

"Oh no..."

He whispered like something trapped and dying.

But Anya had more inspiration for his poetry now. So he sat and smoked until he was ready to write some more. Then he began scribbling nonsense on the lined sheets of notebook paper.