Three

Cindy Ann Tucker.

Born and raised in El Cajon California. She paints murals. Illegally. The Shane that she meets at a bar three blocks from where she lived is not me. Not in the literal sense. The rain was gearing into thunder, lightning and the dull roar of the highway in the distance.

A bit of old training comes to mind. In the jungle, your heart is like a war drum, beat, beat, beat, there are the sounds you hear, and the sounds you feel. Dirt shifts, branches, a breeze, you know the sound behind the sounds. It’s all valid and good. The rain is the sound, the thunder is what you feel, and what’s behind it is a tanned and perfect thing, she smiles and is happy, her spoon clinking in her mug, the table underneath and the sugar bowl that scrapes across it. These are all the sounds behind the original. Her feet on the hardwood floor, the slight creak in her joints from her knee surgery, and it all comes back in a flood

Landing in California my cover, my blank space. I watch for the empty spaces. Pavel leaves instructions. I will follow her, get to know her every move and kill her at my own leisure. His words not mine. I do what he tells me for some odd reason, no not odd. I did it because as much as I wanted to meet my maker I was ashamed of what he would say.

So….

 Following her at night. Watching her moves as she hops fences and leaves her mark. Air was warm city was quite, she looks alone in the green mist of my night vision. CAT….in the blue and black. 10 feet high, 20 feet long. By day she played volleyball on the beach, her partner is the jealous type and notices me watching. Bad part on mine and I hit the road.

How did I measure time? I didn’t think about Carmen. I didn’t think she would have been watching but she was through a lens I didn’t know she had. She was better than me at something. It upset me. She matters not. She matters not. Rinse and repeat.