Two Beds

there's a girl on the car in the parking lot says 'man
you should try to take a shot, can't you see
my walls are crumbling?'

He admired the Conquistadors, in their dusty golds and red brocades. Their armour was never polished, so he never polished his trophies; the peaked flares and curves absorbed all the light around, turning it the gunmetal grey of the iron. Probably melted down from English cannons or Dutch swords or French furnishings – he said the French always travelled in style.

But the Spanish soldiers were his darlings – ruthless and determined in every facet of their lives. The Aztecs hadn't stood a chance against the brightest metals of España's foreign legions, they had been right to massacre a civilisation. Thus fall the weak.

She wondered why she kept going back.

The boys huddled together on the room's second bed – three and five years old and too quiet for boys and eyes too knowing for children. Matthew held his younger brother and didn't notice Timmy clutched a lock of his hair. They were a picture of innocence whenever they slept in a motel bed; at least for now, they were safe from screams and endless words no child should ever have to hear.

She had enough cash for one night. A month of cutting down groceries had given them one night.

The clock said it was almost midnight. The hands were sharp, like black bayonets. A powder compact and its mirror stood on the table, and she sat before it. It had taken a Spanish smith two months to make the pikes hung on his wall; she hid the gunmetal grey on her cheeks in two minutes.


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