Imitation

Imitation

By: Kristen Dahlia

“…and that’s the last time I leave a bar with a man under six feet.”

  Jack gritted his teeth, starting the same passage over again for the fourth time. He’d picked this bench because it was always unoccupied. People treated it as if it was invisible. Hell, some had even walked into it, cursing, muttering, having the gall to look insulted, as if the bench had materialized right into their paths just to piss them off. Jack always picked this bench because it guaranteed everyone left him alone.

  “Yeah, I know, like who does that, ya know?”

  Everyone, it seemed, except for the obnoxious, inconsiderate sorority-delta-delta-delta! college chick who needed everyone within a five-mile vicinity to know about the under-six-foot douchebag who had finished too quickly and couldn’t get her off the night before.

  “Like, I can’t believe he thought that’d be okay.”

  Jack slowly began to tear the corner of the page. After the fifth time of reading and not understanding the passage, he began to entertain the idea of beating the girl to death with the book. He could leave, of course, and find a quieter place where brunette trash didn’t litter the area. But this was his bench. It had been his bench for the last three years. He wasn’t moving.

  “I don’t even know. I mean, it wasn’t like he was small, you know?”

  The textbook was thick. It could easily fracture a skull if used with the correct amount of force. But he’d rented it and couldn’t exactly return it covered in blood.

  “Um, yeah, of course I faked it! I felt bad for him because he, like, seemed really confident.”

  He wondered how hard it’d be to strangle her. It was a shame how hot she was, considering all the bullshit spewing from her mouth. In any other situation, he’d have already hit on her.

  “I might hit up Tyler tonight. He never disappoints.”

  Then again, the textbook hadn’t been that expensive in terms of buying it. The semester was almost over, anyway. Jack could just throw it away after he finally shut her up, and then pay the replacement cost. He’d been budgeting well the past few months, so it wouldn’t break his bank.

  “Oh, god, remember the time you and I walked into the room and—”

  There was a distant bang. Birds scattered from the trees in a terrified flock of squawking. The girl’s small body seized, phone dropping from her delicate hand. Jack watched as her brown eyes widened and stayed at that size. She slumped back onto the bench, head lolled in his direction. Blood seeped from her chest, stark against her white cotton t-shirt.

  He sat there for a few minutes, staring at the dead sorority chick. He pursed his lips, debating, and looked around. His sniper lurked somewhere out there.

The government had passed a law a few years ago that now enabled everyone to hire their own private assassin, if they were able and willing to. The amount of prison inmates had dropped drastically, allowing the peoples’ taxes to go toward more important things, like the Space Troops and the study of cloning the wealthy. But only the wealthy, obviously.

Jack couldn’t see his sniper. Nonetheless, he gestured appreciatively in a vague direction. He bent over and picked up the girl’s phone, examining the shattered screen. The idiot had been naive enough to carry it without a case. He shook his head and threw it as far as he could.

  The dead chick was still staring at him, begging him for help. He rolled his eyes and forcefully shoved her off his bench. As the girl crumpled pathetically to the ground, he pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed at the mess she’d made. When there was only a faint, rust-colored patch left, he tossed the wasted silk cloth on the ground next to the body.

  Jack cleared his throat and returned to his comfortable position. He looked down at the textbook cradled in his lap and smiled. Opening to the page with the shredded corner, he began to read in blissful silence.

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