Man...An Ancient Race

"So it's come down to this, has it?" Frank stared at the gargoyle smile, neither smiling nor scowling, looking him in the eye with unexplained expectancy, a life on hold. Eyes hard as rails, forged from deep, grey stones pounded mercilessly by the clanging hammers of dead hearts. In this part of the country, explanations were hard to come by, like water from a rock. "It always does," concluded the gunman, heaving a sigh of relief; his greatest fear in facing a man uncorrupted.

"Man...an ancient race." Grey Eyes spoke just loud enough to be heard - or not heard - it mattered little. He spoke to the sky.

Frank wondered: Have I gone too far? He remembered sitting behind the Rich Man's desk feeling like a king of old, wallowing in the eternal lust of power. Rich Man asked the gunman how it felt. "Feels just like holding a gun," he marveled, running his hands along the edge of the smooth mahogany. "Only much more powerful." Thievery was one of many occupations listed on Frank's resume and the few seconds spent on the Rich Man's throne opened his eyes to the vast horizons of the plunder of the pen.

But the crown of decision sat uneasily on his head. More to shooting than just aiming straight. Man can't hit his target with his stomach in a knot - and Frank never had a tight gut. That was his advantage over the dead men he'd left behind. No, Frank was not a builder of empires, just a very useful tool. He needed the simple rules of the bullet. Games without rules left him naked and exposed as a baby.

Frank was sure he knew himself

Well, it's not like I've been beat by a man yet. Don't see why this one should be any different. But Grey Eyes was different - and Frank knew it. In the hard wasteland of killing, the steady hand won out. Frank had seen many faces of death. Men too scared to fight back, men too dumb not to run, men who wanted the glory of the kill without learning the skill. Just wantin' to kill, that's not enough. But the face before him now was a demon's mask with angel's eyes.

Grey Eyes had killed before; his other face of granite and ash. Some killers - most killers - plunged into the thrill of it, an adrenaline shot for the emerging Frankenstein. Going down that road put them out of the norm, out of sync, twisting life into warped and distorted images. Tightrope walkers don't dare become bored. And staying alert means finding another kill. But Grey Eyes killed only striking snakes, preserving life. He took pleasure in the preservation - and that was his advantage.

Frank's truest enemy was guilt. Guilt muddles the mind, causes hesitation to slow the killing hand. It's easy to pull the trigger on a bad man, giving him his just desserts. The weak get what they deserved too. But a killer who didn't need the killing. What was he like? Aren't you a cripple too? Gotta be! We all are. Them bullets don't just kill the other guy, they take a piece of you too. I bet you're no different than all the rest of us. Frank bet his life on it.


The Whore of New Orleans. The smoke of her eyes disarmed Frank of any gun not of his birth. Like diseased creatures stricken with desire, men flocked to her in helpless agony. Cloaks of deceit flung to the ground as pleading arms stretched out for a taste of her nurturing nectar. Once enflamed, words imprisoned in the dark stillness of night released their cry and she knew well the hidden voices of men. Like a beaten dog of the desert, she walked with wary steps at the sight of oncoming leggings.

Pressing her husband's killer against her lips she belched her weaknesses in open contempt. She could have caged them, owned them, left them to damage her organs. But she freed them right in front of Frank's hazing eyes leaving him to realize her death was his death, his bullets useless as his rotted love. She knew he'd come to rape her, to call her whore, to pray at her temple with a psalm of depravity. But in the facing of it she took away his pleasure. A whore no more.

Still, Frank need his raping, to show all the world the plight of his soul. He demanded her worldly possessions in lieu of her body. Having suffered the humiliation of marrying his gun, Frank crusaded his rifled religion with an evangelist's fervor. And like any religious zealot, he bore contempt on creeds of a differing stripe. Most importantly he craved the conquests as sacrifices to his god, to prove he'd not thrown his life away in vain. All he need do was win - every time.



Frank had had his chance to kill his competitor, had him cold and surrounded. But in flinty recognition Grey Eyes flashed Knowledge Of The Unknown and for Frank nothing blazed more preciously in his torment. "Don't punch him in the mouth," he ordered his men. "He needs to talk, and talk plenty." But Frank must first ride out if he were to grab onto the brass ring of his blossoming business career - but after having taken care of the confused plans of his heart, he'd wring the truth from behind those grey eyes and perhaps learn the secret to his freedom.

Didn't look like Frank was going to get that talk now. "Who are you?" he demanded of Grey Eyes. No, there was no backing down now but he'd lost his advantage. The only way to find out who this man was was to draw his gun. And yet...why this childlike need to talk? He fought back the urge, to fight two opponents was lethal. No, no need for words. I can kill him like always. Man that can be shot got no right to live no how. I'm gonna draw, simple as that. My head's clear enough. Now!

Man, an ancient race...modern in his methods, clichéd in his traits...men waiting to be proven true, men wanting to be proven liars...what's left to be done with nothing new under the sun?...time to return where it started, innocent children safe in Nature's hands...the rising sun mourns the forever folly of soil drained barren by weeds...someday avenging angels swoop in to save the flowers before it's too late...high and wide will be the mounds of pulled weeds as the angels lament, "Man...an ancient race."


________________________________________________



---------------------------------------------