As/Is







2.03.2004



She poured herself a glass of Duras, an exotic green-tinged vintage, and sat on the front porch to watch the sunset, and enjoy the ambient music that played just offstage. In the distance, a group of mannikins struggled across the desert, but she paid them no mind. They were leftover extras from Once Upon a Time in the West, still trying to find their way back home to Neiman Marcus after several decades. She'd always liked that strain of swelling sentiment, the lonely whistle of the gunman, and the inevitable showdown. She'd always liked the man with no name. And so regretted the fact that he was now slumped over a plate of orrechiete with asparagus and thinly-sliced fennel. He hadn't even tasted the giant capers that she had pickled herself. Well, he'd always been a quiet man. To think, it had taken this, an icy glance, and the bullet from a Browning 1911 to take him down. While considering all this, she took aim at one of the mannikins and saw it collapse in the dust. Damn, she was a good shot. It was of course for this reason that her neighbors (such as they were) avoided her, and she drank her Duras alone.