Introspective

By: Lee Almodovar

The blood dripped slowly off his fingertips onto the hot sand sizzling as it impacted against the hot desert. His short highlighted hair ruffled slightly in the warm breeze, a trail of the crimson blood leading down from his chin across his black shirt silhouetting around the four inch gash in his gut. His breathing slow, but faltering, he stared through the crack in his sunglasses at the never-ending desert, staring beyond the wreckage of his helicopter to the orange setting sun. He turned to watch the pilot slowly drag his broken body across the sand trying to get away. Reaching into his shoulder holster, he removed the chrome plated .45 that had been his only friend during the last fifteen years of solitude and pointed it squarely at the pilot's head.

The few birds resting miles away fluttered about at the loud gunshot. The pilot, resting in a pool of spattered brain matter and blood, clutched the ground in his final moments, sand and clay running through his bloodied fingers. The dark figure lowered his gun, replacing it into his shoulder holster and spied the approaching night sky. His vision darkened, not because of the night, not because of the sunglasses, but of the massive blood loss. He dropped heavily to his knees, expelling a stream of blood infused air, and collapsed onto his hands sustaining his upper body over the hot sand.

The blood reminded him of those first days long ago when he began dissociate with society; the few drops forming small shapes as they sizzled and splattered on the hot clay. His sunglasses slid off his face, breaking on the unforgiving ground, shattering much like his heart had a little over a decade ago. He coughed a final time, and then joined the pilot for their final warm, earthly embrace.