Out

by Natsuo Kirino

He was in his late thirties, swarthy, with close-cropped hair, small, upturned eyes, and full lips. Though he wasn’t exactly handsome, there was a composure in his face that made it appealing. But his clothes were ridiculously loud. A slick black designer suit that ill suited his sturdy frame, topped off with a gaudy tie. A gold Rolex and a gold Cartier lighter. The effect was almost comic, and strikingly at odds with the mournful look in his eyes. His eyes. His eyes were like well water. Anna remembered a photo she’d seen in a magazine somewhere of a dark pool hidden away in a high mountain valley. The water was steel gray, still and cold, and Anna had imagined that its depths sheltered strange creatures in the tangles of water grass. No swimmer, nor any boat, would go near a pool like that. At night, the black crater would suck up the starlight, while its strange inhabitants watched unnoticed from the depths. Maybe the man beside her had chosen his shiny costume to keep people from looking into his own dark pool.