Four Found Dead

by Natalie D. Richards

Maybe it’s a rule that movie theater carpet has to look like a fever dream after a high school geometry test.

you only get to play the hand you’re dealt, and these are my cards today.

Death is like the tide; it rolls in and out in an endless cycle.

The whole world is a set of dominoes—everything we say and do touches another domino, and they all tumble this way or that. Your choices might ripple out to someone who cures cancer. Maybe my recent choices opened a window of opportunity for a killer.

Death is absolute. It’s always accepted in the end, because there aren’t any other options on the table.

I know you know what happened that night, but there are things I should tell you. I had a secret I never shared. And I knew someone else’s secret too—the secret that set this whole thing in motion.

I’m awed by every piece of this moment, by the sheer simple wonder of being alive.