Order of the Day

The investigator jingled the keychain, satisfied. In his other hand, he held the day’s first coffee. Steaming hot. Black. Just the way he liked it. The lanyard on the keycard extended, and he swiped the magnetic strip through the device on the wall. The door slid open with a click, all by itself. That’s odd, the investigator thought. Then he realized he was staring down the barrel of a shotgun, its trigger already pulled.

The deafening blast peeled off his scalp and the upper part of his frontal lobe. The investigator spun around himself, and since his right leg was paralyzed, he twirled in an ever-tighter circle until his upper body collapsed, and he found himself face-down. A memory flashed up, and as his arms flailed unevenly across the vinyl floor, he was a child again.

“Look, Mommy, look! I’m making angels in the snow, Mommy. Look!”

He desperately wanted to say the words, but his tongue, now wetting the floor, only made jerking leaps. His arms flopped on either side of his body, clumsily through brown rings that might be blood or might be coffee.

“Angels! Mommy! Look!”

Meanwhile, the edge of his trouser waistband was found and yanked down. Tranås humped his way methodically to the first orgasm of the day. Just the way he liked it.

Smash the system!