AcmeShorts

David could see themes developing but he didn't understand them. The enormity of the entire situation had him paralyzed. He looked at the gun in his hand and then he put it away. Alice lowered her hands and heard her heart in her ears, she couldn't hear his voice over the noise but he was talking. He picked up a glass from the flat concrete ledge of the stoop where they were standing. It was the front steps in front of an old house built in an old neighborhood and the ice in the glass was melted. He looked at the glass and his hands and the steps and the sun and the blue dot in his eyes when he looked back down at Alice. This was an inappropriate pause, he should have shot her already.

"What are we doing, Alice?" he asked her, "What is this?"

"You're leaving, you're going to shoot me and then you're going away forever."

It was true.

"You're going to kill me and us and all that we have and you're going to leave and never come back," she said.

David put the glass back and continued the pause. He took a step down so his feet were on two different levels and dumbly admired them. He didn't understand the symbol in his feet, how they were perfectly aligned but on different levels but he'd done it on purpose. David looked up and Alice sighed and walked down the steps onto the sidewalk. It was the middle of the day and there were a lot of cars on the street and she walked out into the cars and one hit her.

"What if I stayed," said David.