The Little Paperbound Confessional 
The walk to the party is long, but you don’t much mind. You won’t be here long. You hear the music well before you reach the front door, all bass and garbled noise. The cold air makes your skin bristle, sharpens your focus. The front is lit by a solitary incandescent bulb, old and yellow. The front door is covered in peeling white paint, rough, and ajar. Pushing it open, a gust of body heat washes over you. The air is thick with sex, alcohol, drugs, and teenage stupidity. The door swings into the back of a couple talking in the corner. They don’t turn around.
You step to the left into the kitchen and you find yourself to be invisible. People clutter every corner, and choke the hallway behind you, everyone is engaged in some meaningless activity; oblivious to the bleeding, green-eyed boy full of ill intent. You try not to hear the conversations hovering in the air; the words predatory, primitive, and blithely sexual. You try to lose yourself in the shitty music that rattles the mattresses propped against the walls, and the drywall underneath them. The light in the kitchen is dim, serving only to illuminate the haze that hangs in the air. The smell of marijuana is thick, and glass bottles of alcohol line the counter. You let your eyes roll over them until you find one, an unopened bottle of Captain Morgan rum, and pull it off the counter. You turn the bottle over in your hands. The glass is cool, and the label peels only slightly in the corner. You let the bottle hang loosely from your grip at your side.
No one protests, or even notices this, let alone the fifty caliber revolver hung under your belt, ten inch stainless steel barrel facing down. The light gleams from the corner of the muzzle brake, reflecting a dim pattern that dances across your eyes.
Copyright © Bryan Thaxton
More to follow.
You step to the left into the kitchen and you find yourself to be invisible. People clutter every corner, and choke the hallway behind you, everyone is engaged in some meaningless activity; oblivious to the bleeding, green-eyed boy full of ill intent. You try not to hear the conversations hovering in the air; the words predatory, primitive, and blithely sexual. You try to lose yourself in the shitty music that rattles the mattresses propped against the walls, and the drywall underneath them. The light in the kitchen is dim, serving only to illuminate the haze that hangs in the air. The smell of marijuana is thick, and glass bottles of alcohol line the counter. You let your eyes roll over them until you find one, an unopened bottle of Captain Morgan rum, and pull it off the counter. You turn the bottle over in your hands. The glass is cool, and the label peels only slightly in the corner. You let the bottle hang loosely from your grip at your side.
No one protests, or even notices this, let alone the fifty caliber revolver hung under your belt, ten inch stainless steel barrel facing down. The light gleams from the corner of the muzzle brake, reflecting a dim pattern that dances across your eyes.
Copyright © Bryan Thaxton
More to follow.
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