A late Friday afternoon acupuncture appointment has Robert Jamison lying face down on a comfortable massage table with a half dozen needles positioned expertly in his lower back. Somehow seeming both close and yet also very far away, soft Asian New-Age music is competing with rambling, disjointed thoughts for the possession of his consciousness.
+++++Neither is the victor…, he dozes.
+++++Robert is snapped back to full wide awake by a woman’s scream that is cut off somewhere in the middle by a “pffft” sound he has heard only in the movies or on TV. This is followed by the voice of his acupuncturist pleading for someone to “please don’t do this.” And this is then followed by two more “pfffts.”
+++++Still lying there, Robert has now turned to face the closed door of the eight by ten appointment room. He feels he should do something; at least get up and see what’s going on.
+++++Somebody’s killin’ people out there, Robert, that’s what’s goin’ on. Killin’ the people who are bein’ loud or who are in the way.
+++++Robert thinks maybe he could go out and see about calling 911.
+++++And probably get yourself shot.
+++++He wonders why someone would rob an acupuncture clinic. There certainly wouldn’t be all that much cash around.
+++++Maybe it isn’t a robbery; maybe somebody got caught messin’ around.
+++++Only a few seconds have passed. Robert decides to stay put at least for a few minutes; maybe the guy will leave. His thoughts drift to Catherine. Maybe he should break it off with her; she’s been kind of clingy lately. Jenny isn’t dumb; sooner or later she will find out and then there will be a real mess…
+++++Catherine? Jenny? You need to focus here if you want to get out of this alive.
+++++Robert hears the doorknob mechanism click as it’s turned and pretends to be sleeping. Seconds crawl by and he struggles not to open his eyes to see if somebody is standing in the doorway. Except for the soft music from the room’s CD player, it’s completely quiet. He starts to count to sixty…
+++++Better make that a hundred and twenty, Robert. At least a hundred and twenty.
+++++…hoping by the time he gets to sixty the killer will have decided to leave the building before …
+++++Are you listening to me?
+++++… he gets caught.
+++++At sixty, Robert opens one eye and sees that the door is open about six inches and the barrel of a gun with a very large silencer is leveled at him.
+++++“Pffft!” “Pffft!” Pffft!”
+++++Robert knows he’s probably dying. He’s then startled as he feels a breath and what must be his assailant’s lips touch his right ear.
+++++“Oh yeah,” comes a whisper after a second. “Jenny and Catherine said to say ‘Hi’.
+++++Somebody was messin’ around; I was right about that, wasn’t I, Robert?
+++++“Fuck off,” whispered Robert through a mouthful of blood. “Just fuck off.”

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Roy Dorman

Roy Dorman is retired from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Benefits Office and has been a voracious reader for over 60 years. At the prompting of an old high school friend, himself a retired English teacher, Roy is now a voracious writer. He has had flash fiction published recently in Black Petals, Yellow Mama, Theme of Absence, Near To the Knuckle, Bewildering Stories, Flash Fiction Press, The Story Shack, Spelk, Shotgun Honey, and a number of other online and print journals. Roy is currently the submissions editor at Yahara Prairie Lights, which puts him in the enviable position of sometimes being able to accept his own work. That site is at yaharaprairie.wordpress.com

Latest posts by Roy Dorman (see all)

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