In Principio

Le Tueur

she walked in like an anachronism,

stealing his heart like a thief in velvet.

with a swish of her classic short-cut bob,

and a bat of those dark long lashes,

she caught him in the clutches of her claws,

red manicure so accustomed to the grip.

she clicked her glossy stilettos down the halls,

her staccato walk bold against the linoleum floors,

and he never got off tempo with the metronome,

as she ticked away, click-clacking.

but one day he found himself in a hospital bed,

and when he gifted her his most prized possession,

her hands fell to her sides, taken aback by this sudden guessture of kindness.

but le tueur had great walls and stone chambers and titanium bars, and le tueur did not believe this.

She silently dismissed his actions as insolence and guile, and brandished her long, well forged weapon.

and like glass, clear and sharp, she gave him a cool kiss from her sword, and left a deep gash down his center.

and as he howled and bent over from the pain, she slipped out with those carmine emotionless lips, those green orbs void as if nothing had ever happened.

but one day, as le tueur sat in a café having just finished with another victim, she glanced across at the street in the window and froze.

because for a moment, in her slight second of hesitancy, she felt she saw those deep brown eyes, the ones from one of her most favorite victims, the one who had gotten the pleasure of  confusing her for a minute, but when she did a double take, it had only been a pedestrian crossing the street.

but that brief second of doubt did not leave le tueur quite as quickly as it should've, and she swore violently as she rose to abandon her spot in the shop.

she began to leave as the door chimed and she stopped once again. because she hadn't been mistaken; it was indeed her most famous victim, but he was not dead.

infact, he walked in with another lady, one who didn't seem to mind what she wore or how she looked, one who made him genuinely laugh with mirth.

le tueur stood in the middle of the café, in a rare first: she was utterly and wholly confounded.

he had not died.

he was the only one she'd ever killed who had not died.

and the same weapon she'd wielded that day, the very same glass sword she'd held, came and buried itself in her until she fell to the floor of the shop.

the tables were stunned into a tense silence as she wept, and allowed herself to weep and mourn and feel and pour out everything as she felt the unbearable, unwavering pain of her fortress collapsing.

and she let it collapse.

nobody spoke, not a thing moved as le tueur layed forth her soul on the polished wood of the café, until she felt it happen, felt her eyes clear and her mind open and she wiped her eyes dry.

clearing the wrinkles from her crisp cashmere skirt, she rose and looked at the walking dead straight in the eyes.

she did not say anything, and she ceased to cry or feel, just long enough to look at him, and let him know that he was lucky, and that his grave stood growing cold, and that she would let it.

and with a fleeting, very brief smile, le tueur left and never returned.