September 7, Flash 41, a date which will live *dramatic pause* in infamy.

Un/surprisingly, this week's entry contains neither torpedoes nor dive bombing nor exploding.

Mercy me, no wonder humans are always going to war.

He walked in and slid the photograph across my desk. Silence sweat cool air, a slump & an elongated rustle. I watched him fumble through the hillock of envelopes to grab the letter opener, in the dark a surgeon's blade, ambling over my still warm form to clumsily cut through tough, wooden flesh to get at the punched sunlight within.

Of course the silence was probably split when the lock caromed off my leg & onto the hoary planks. He looked to be gently laughing as he fingered his prize, mock admirably exchanging its gleam for the dull contents of his pocket, a crisp, white handkerchief to calmly wipe his brow. The song of a passing wood thrush, the soporific buzz of the radio I had turned down after he called, his habitually muffled speech as he dialed the third man, nothing, I could hear nothing.

The lamp visibly crackled as he switched it off, continuing with the third man as his feet slipped in glee out into the narrow hall. I tried to follow, the warped frame's unseen gate bidding me stay.

You'd think as a reward for a poisonous betrayal the gods would grant a ghost faculties beyond the sense of sight. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but watching your assassin delicately gloat in the shadows, vital facts forever out of earshot, is colder still. Destined to be imprisoned in the middle of nowhere with your only companion a photograph of your murdered lover, forever, the coldest meal of all.