Reading: "Rituals of the Antithetical' from the novel 'RITUALS OF THE ANTITHETICAL' (A.Glass 2023)
“Aria, have you always been interested in weapons?”
“Kind of. My father, my late father. He was in the military. He had guns. Kept one at home. A handgun.”
“When did your father pass away?”
Sipping her coffee, Diarmid shakes her head in a cynical way. Setting up an answer, I guess she was trained as such to do so. To initiate my reply, an insinuation. Seeing if my father had committed suicide. How fucking tedious it all was. So long ago. But alas, a fleeting memory.
“When did he die? Well, he was in combat, Mexico in the Eighties. Special Forces. Came back to the U.S., worked as a corporate spy for a clandestine public relations company. He passed away in Ninety Four. Od’ed on heroin. An accident. Maybe...”
I felt like misdirecting the answer. She was a very boring person. I didn't care if I was seen as stalling and playing out the conversation.
“...But, I had dreams of him. In the jungles of South America, him and his unit. It was like I was there. But, they were skeletons. Like the living dead, but not. Just skeletons in military uniform walking through the foliage. Freaky huh?”
Finishing her coffee and eating the remainder of the croissant. Diarmid pads her lips down with the serviette. Just a memory, doesn’t at all affect my resonation. She looks around the street. Nothing on this planet can. Standing, she pushes in the chair. Walking down 2nd Avenue, placing the single headphone back into her right ear, tapping a button on her pager. The music that she was listening to before her coffee and croissant, begins again.
___
Reading: "Rituals of the Antithetical" from the novel 'RITUALS OF THE ANTITHETICAL' (A.Glass 2023)
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