A Missed Opportunity
By Alex Munkacsy


Kate played with Shyla's son's foot and wondered what killing was like. Watching after the baby bored her. Kate often envied her older sister.

Shyla never wore any lipstick to work. She always pulled her black hair back in a severe bun. She didn't enjoy her work, that much was clear. To Shyla, killing was a chore.

Shyla would be back soon. She'd storm in the door, slam it shut, rush to the bathroom, take a shower, open a bottle of wine.

Shyla was always a fussy blur of complaints after work.

Kate wondered how she would do it, if it was her job to kill. She fell back on the turquoise bedspread beside her sister's baby, hands clasped behind her head.

She thought back about her trip to Pittsburgh. She almost fell asleep driving. The windshield wipers kept standing up and laying down over and over again, making monotonous, squeaky sounds. Mile after mile twisted by and rain had poured down the whole way. It was a boring trip.

Until a crumpled, red sports car popped into view.

Kate remembered the hot jolt of excitement that surged through her body when she saw it. Crunched to the side of the road, what used to be a cherry red Mazda Miata was shoved up against a rail. A pale, balding man was crawling out of the wreck when she arrived. He was shirtless, moaning, writhing, wiggling out of the metal and into the rain like an earthworm.

Beautiful.

Her first impulse was to run over the man's mangled body with her car. She wanted to hear his bones snap and pop under her tires like a wad of bubble wrap. She wanted to relish the screams.

Kate wore an ordinary flower print dress that day, but in her mind's eye she was wearing a conductor's outfit: white shirt, white bow tie, black jacket with long coattails, white gloves and a white cauliflower wig. The George Washington kind.

She smiled and revved the engine gently, thinking about the sound of snapping twigs, and how the man's face would twist and contort as he felt himself break. She thought about doing it. But she didn't want to risk going to jail.

But what if I could get away with it?

Kate remembered considering her options, as the rain beat down on the windshield.

If she drove over him, the man probably wouldn't die right away. She could even play with his bones a little bit if he lived. Kate laughed as she thought of herself snapping one off with her fingers. She imagined lifting her pinky fingers in the air, conducting agony, directing an orchestra of pain. When the first movement was complete and the man recovered from the shock, she would break off another piece of shattered bone.

A symphony of screams.

She giggled, imagining the man straining his neck to watch as she bent down to get another baton, unable to take his bulging eyes off of what she was doing to his shattered legs. She wondered what his confused screams would sound like.

But Kate was too nervous to kill anyone. She was never the risk taker. That was Shyla.

All Kate did that day was stop the car, pull out an umbrella and stand there beside that stupid man. She stared at him while he whined and begged her to call someone, do something, do anything.

And then he died. How pathetic.

Even though Kate didn't participate that day, his death was fascinating to watch. The man's whining turned into rage, accusations and then just heavy, desperate panting. Blood oozed out of his mouth and leaked out of his limbs, pooling into maroon puddles. His skin turned maggot white.

Kate squatted down to get a closer look at the man's final moments.

At last his eyes twitched, fluttered and then... everything stopped. Life blinked out of him, leaving behind a still corpse that stared quietly into space. Then the cops came. Then the ambulance arrived. Then the tow truck.

Damnit! What a missed opportunity.

Shyla's baby started to cry. Again. Kate thought about tossing it out the window and watching it freeze to death. Or, maybe she should chop it up and boil all the pieces in a big pot.

But Kate knew she couldn't do any of that. She also knew that if she didn't find a way to pacify this baby and shut it up soon, Shyla was going to kill her when she came home.

"Shut up, baby." Kate said. She lifted Shyla's son into her arms. She rocked it softly until it fell asleep.


- - -
bio here