"Pela Via" by Richard Thomas

Her laughing blue eyes dance at the edge of my fading vision.

The bar is cloudy and moist. Blanketed in darkness, the gash at my side throbs. A rivulet trickles down my side. Her cigarette lies crushed in the ashtray, a thin wisp of grey smoke drifting towards the ceiling. Lipstick in a faded merlot rims a tall glass filled with two trembling cubes, a bruised lime and regret.

I'm shivering now. She never touched me, only peeled back her lips into a grin, her whispers full of death and...