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..another black and white ....January 29, 2008   She stared from the black-and-white photograph.  Elliott Longstreet stared back.  Her look could only be described as haunting, provided someone other than Longstreet did the describing.  He had seen his share of corpses, sure.  But even cadavers hadn't given him a haunting look.  They didn't look haunting and they didn't look peaceful.  They just looked dead.  Cold, gray, and dead. Longstreet fingered the photograph and swallowed the scotch cradled on his tongue.  The whiskey burned going down, a reminder he hadn't eaten since breakfast.  He reached across the dark polished wood and grabbed a fistful of bar nuts. He could tell from what she was wearing that he hadn't been with her that day.  She knew what he thought were her best looks and, for reasons he refused to consider, she saved those looks for others.  Here, she stood in the foreground, flat fields behind her.  Thousands of rice birds peppered the winter sky.  In the distance, close to the horizon, a chevron of geese exited the frame, stage right. Her black hair curled in the moist, cold air.  She wore what looked to be a charcoal sweater.  It was V-necked and the shading within that triangle of milk-white flesh implied breasts being raised and pushed together.  Her khaki skirt was short and tight and, between its hem and the top of her knee-length, black leather boots, black hosiery clung tightly to her thighs. "Bartender," he croaked, wiping his brow with a soggy, thin napkin. "Another Black & White.  Neat."  previous..|..current..|..archives..|..1st quarter index..|..next

Copyright © 2008 by the beastmaster