Before We Disappear

by Shaun David Hutchinson

Word had spread like cholera of the Enchantress and her beautiful magic.

Henri Chabrol was a talented magician with absolutely no flair for the dramatic. His greatest trick was how quickly he could put his audience to sleep.

I APPEARED IN the bank’s basement like an epiphany, and disappeared like an errant thought.

“We don’t invite trouble to dinner,” she always said, “because then it will expect to stay for dessert.”

I’d gotten the feeling Lucia wasn’t happy, but I’d assumed disgruntled was her default mood. Some people were simply born a little more sour than others.

She was the type who took her feelings, bunched them up, and shoved them into the soles of her shoes, and then used them to fuel her work.

She was a dream made flesh and he was a bad idea impossible to resist. Together they were beguiling.