Inspiration!

I have not written in forever. So after reading Lucio and BJ's stuff last night, I think I got a little kick in the butt, writing-wise. Who needs to study for finals anyways?

I really like the idea of you guys writing the same story, but from different perspectives. And the subject-matter led me to write this...enjoy.

Disclaimer: This is totally you're guys' project, don't feel obligated to include this. I just thought it'd be interesting to add a third perspective. Whether you include it or not, I had fun writing it. P.S. I heart criticisms.

I was hoping for a white chocolate mocha. But it’s straight black, the kind that simmers the bowels. I look distastefully at the dark liquid before me and decide: no matter. And take a forced gulp.

Before me is my wife. She is tired, like me. The long nights and days are stitched clearly into her creased face. But her long, flowing blonde hair conceals those features. A goddess, warped and riddled through time, I decide.

She gazes upon my contrived swallows, as a mother would with her child, before raising her own cup. We both finish our beverages in silence.

“He might do it tonight,” she murmurs. “He is very close.”

“Perhaps,” I answer.

I shift uneasily in my chair as the coffee takes effect. I can feel the burn. High concentration alkaloids coursing through my stomach, gnawing at my unfortunate intolerance to the caffeine. I reach for the glass of water beside me, trying my best to hide the discomfort. A swift gulp to douses the flames. Another for good measure. And I am now awake.

“Yes, yes perhaps,” I repeat. “And, perhaps, where we have predicted!”

My wife smiles her long, sweet smile. She walks lazily over to my desk, her slender figure swaying in a magnificent purple dress. She bats her hair as she sits in my lap.

“More coffee darling?” before kissing my cheek.

I smile at her mock as I shift towards the window. Our apartment is small, and dark, and cheap, but the window provides the perfect aerial view. A perfect aerial view of a still, black city, at the bottom-of-the-barrel part of town, where even the rats won’t venture. A red light district too dark for the red lights.

I strike a cigarette to lighten the view. Clarissa pushes off with a fake cough.

Bums, I reflect. His first will be a bum.

I chew on my rolled cigarette as the coffee throws itself into high gear. I reach for my binoculars over a stack of papers, tapping my fingers against the oakwood desk to lighten the jitters. The nervous movement sweeps some of the papers to the floor.

“Careful!” Clarissa strides towards the desk. “I had these in order James.”

I am not paying attention. I am watching intently through the window, into the dark, magnified for my analysis and conclusions, waiting. Patiently waiting with my lovable wife at an unsightly hour, which is to say, every hour.

Waiting for what? It is still uncertain.

I hear Clarissa shuffling through the papers, patiently sighing at my indifference. She meshes the loose documents with care and places them upon the desk, smothering the stack with her coffee cup as a makeshift paperweight.

“He won’t do it, not tonight,” she mutters.

Perhaps, I ponder, my eyes still glued to the binoculars. But perhaps not.

I caress the stack of papers my wife so gingerly organized. The graphs and analyses, compiled over the tireless, long years, lie still under my bony fingers. Our life’s work, one would say. Years of study and hardship, from Timbuktu to Louisiana and everywhere in between.

It felt like fate that she and I would have the same fire for it. But, perhaps, if given the chance, any human being would. The answers to come could very well explain a great deal.

Looking through the window, however, through that dark blackness of night, I wondered.

Could murder ever be truly studied?