Hope

Hope was alive and now she was dead and was the world richer for her absence and poorer for her presence?

Passionate Intensity

You would expect them to hate each other, but no: Tits fell in love with every peaceable inch of her the moment they locked eyes over the rapidly cooling corpse of Miles of the Ponies. “Little sister,” Tits told her, breathing easy as she tipped gCopaleen’s corpus delicately over the side of the Skunk River bridge, “you got nothing to fear from me. Let me stand you a reefer.”

They got high as two kites, cooling the resinous smoke in their lungs and laughing it out in each other’s faces, Tits blowing hot, Hope blowing cold. Hope told her about her sisters with their pointed virtues, and Tits read her the litany of every mother-loving man she’d killed. Dawn and the police found them still leaned against the rail, so Tits tipped her hat to Detective Mulrooney and took them off to an automat for a cup of coffee and more talk.

“Tits Akimbo’s made a friend,” cracked the streets, agog at the sudden brazen humanity of her. The quietest mule kicks the hardest, and Tits would have had to grass a few valuable connections for talking out the south side of their mouths, only Fisheye made the mistake of peeling after Hope with a boathook. Word got around about the smoking crater Fish left in Hamartia Street and Hope clean and virginal at the dab center of it, and suddenly things were calm as lenten service.

Thick as thieves, those two, and full of sister-love as any blood; one blowing hot, one blowing cold.

Two Titans Forever Locked In Battle

blame this one on Stephen

Resolve was cooking up the latest batch when she came in, slow and quiet and making no effort to hide. He raised his eyebrows slightly. “I thought you were dead,” he said. “I was pretty sure of it, in fact.”

“Dead?” She laughed. “Yes.” She put down her bag, kicked it across to him.

Without stopping, he leaned over enough to see the head inside. “Thorough.” His hands were steady. “You can’t shoot me right now.”

“No?”

“This is delicate work. If you jostle me–” a gentle threat– “you’ll blow us both up.”

“You never know,” Hope said, and pulled out her gun. “Hope springs eternal.”

The explosion echoed her laughter.

Who Would Live Quietly Must Murder Hope

Hope was living in a basement apartment when he found her. One small southern window near the ceiling let in what little light there was, enough to show a cracked concrete floor and four white unadorned walls. A rug in one corner had a blanket on it; this, he surmised, was her bed. He squatted tailor-style on the rug and settled back to wait her return. He had nothing but time.

The sun had set before she returned, arms laden with fast food. He sat, still as the Buddha, beneath the window, head bowed. The flourescent ring in the ceiling flickered into dim light. “Oh!” said Hope, and dropped the fast food. He raised his face and watched her, lips parted slightly over his pointed white teeth. The door had shut behind her, and she backed against it, hands spread over her throat. “What — what do you want?”

“I want nothing,” Resolve said, and stood. She opened her eyes and her mouth to scream, but he closed upon her and she was silent. When it was finished, he looked down at her body on the concrete and snapped off the light. He did not leave the apartment. Time passed.