15. Seth and Annie

Seth tugged on the strand of skin fraying off of his fingernail, and hissed through his teeth as it bit into the quick. The newly torn fissure yielded a trickle of blood. Seth popped the finger into his mouth and wished he would have just left it alone.

The first six notes of "The Star Spangled Banner" tore from Annie's guitar like bullets from a revolver. The crowd caught fire; Seth looked up with worry lines on his forehead. This wasn't on the setlist. He didn't know the bass line. The audience was already into it. What was he supposed to do?
"Just kidding," Annie laughed into the mic, and dropped the impromptu Hendrix homage. Seth's shoulders rose and fell with an unburdening sigh. He chuckled at himself. What a free spirit that girl was, he thought. There was no one like her.
The songs went on as scheduled, and Seth's hands, programmed by obsessive sessions of practice, plodded along on autopilot. He was proud of his consistency. Note for note, he played precisely what was written, with no deviation whatsoever. Not that anyone noticed.
Annie seemed never to repeat herself exactly. Seth had an ear for this and he would notice the spatchcock revision of a score, especially careful to discern improvisational adaptations from mere mistakes. As he would point out, Annie did not make mistakes. She seemed possessed by a force that made her fingers fly, spewing riffs humbucker-hot when necessary. Sometimes she'd put the tempo just where it felt perfect and find, somewhere in those strings, scales that made harmonies with key changes that would break your heart, break it exactly right. Seth couldn't believe the enormity of the music in those hands. Her arms were so thin.

The highway lights made the tour bus interior a carousel of warm orange glows. They overlapped and faded away. The singer, reclined and serene, looked like her skin was the colour of caramel, then of milk. "Annie?"
"Yeah? Oh, hey Seth."
"That show, it was a great show. You were great, you're always great."
"Yeah, thanks."
"No, I mean it, you're really something else. Something special."
"Mm, thanks for the compliment. And you're a great bassist, you are." She yawned. "Yeah, really... great, Seth. But look, I don't like too many compliments on my playing, you know? They just stop meaning anything. It starts to be just a sound people make. You know what I mean?" She shifted her shoulders, settling back into the seat.
Seth took this for humility. He fought the urge to kneel. "I mean, more than just music." Looking for the right words, the road noise filled the cabin.
Annie opened her eyes and turned. Seth, leaning so far forwards that he barely made contact with his seat, picked at his fingers. She wondered what she should say to him, what she could say.
"You know, Seth," she said, looking up to the roof, "for a bass player, you're very high strung." She smiled in a good-natured way and looked over. Passing lights from outside made shadows spin across Seth's features like a sundial in time-lapse. He looked at his hands, fingers all working over each other, probing irregularities.
"Sss," he muttered, and put a bleeding finger in his mouth.

14. Old man and grandson

"The only thing that might keep us alive in there was if we got off the first shot. There was a thing they'd say. Shoot first, you're a hero; shoot second, you're a casualty. Those of us that made it, well, being clever counted for a lot. Some of the time, when we came to a bunker from around back, they'd know we were coming. You'd see a little further around the hatch than where you could point the gun, so they'd just turn the big machinegun right around and train it on the door for when we came in. When they did that, we'd stay put. Lob a grenade through. Clear out the whole room."
"You'd frag 'em?"
"Would 'n' did. A dozen times." He looked into his teacup and saw the reflection of his face. When he picked it up, the image shattered into ripples.
"What was your best kill?" asked the grandson, who knew only youth.
The old man thoughtfully set down his tea and leaned towards the impetuous boy.
"One German saw the grenade come, and he ran for the door. The explosion took off his arms and head. Threw the rest into the hallway. He looked like a sweater with the sleeves rolled up."
The grandson didn't think much of it at the time, but the words created for him a special part of the season in late September. When the first autumn chills crept in, and the cold mornings gave way to warm afternoons, he would see again and again the specter of this ragged corpse of the man who had not made it to the door.

ESL Kids -- Nami, Jinho & Kevin

Kevin was out of options, and he knew it. "Time to say goodbye, Nami," he said, a note of warning in his voice. She wouldn't dare try to stop him, or would she?

"Are you going back to New York?" she asked him, knowing that whatever he said would be a lie. The question was intended to throw him.
"Yes, I am," replied Kevin, hurrying through the last step of the con: exit, stage left. Without the need for any further prevarication, he considered his fraud complete. He turned away from Nami, and solemnly looked to the eyes that had trusted him most. "Goodbye, Jinho," Kevin said. Though his eyes were still, his heart was not. At least the hard part was over. "Goodbye, Nami."

His adrenaline surged. He was thinking of everything he would do after the getaway, counting the riches that awaited him overseas. He noticed nothing unusual as Jinho and Nami said a goodbye even more rehearsed than his own. "Take care, Kevin. We'll miss you." Even a fraction of Kevin's perception would have detected something amiss if he wasn't distracted by his own hubris as he raced through the final goodbye. It was too late. He'd been had.

"I'll miss you too. So long, everyone. I love you all." Kevin made a mental note of a possible flaw in his facade: he could not maintain eye contact when he told the truth. He got into the car, still unaware of how early his plan had unfurled before the eyes of his would-be accomplices, and how masterfully he'd been outplayed.

With an acknowledged equal hand in the crime, Jinho and Nami closed the door together.

Kevin believed he'd finally pulled off the master con, playing these dupes right into his hands. He believed it right up until the parking brake let go.

Jinho watched the coupe careening down the hill. He wondered what Kevin would do, or try; picturing the smug bastard realizing the brakes were cut and the doors were locked for good. Would he have time to break a window? Jinho thought, for only a moment, that he might be as badly off now as his nemesis. Was it wrong to kill a killer? The car broke through the guardrail and took a nosedive. He decided to let karma judge him for this one, he owed that much to Ann. Whether it had changed the path of what was to come, he wouldn't know until it happened. He was still in reverie as he said, "See you, Nami."

She snapped him out of it. "See you again!" She turned with strict professionalism, but he knew it hadn't been all business with her. Yeah, things were on a different path now, all right.