Blood

Photo by Ludmila Kuznetsova on Unsplash

As the echo of sprayed bullets fades into the night, a new sound, those with the whirling light of red attached, begin to fill the void. Curious onlookers begin to gather, mill and chatter about the possible who’s and why’s. Unfortunately, this isn’t a new occurrence in the borough of trees, it’s just another dispute ending with glassy eyes and the dissipating scent of gun-smoke.

Like cockroaches in the safety of night, scuttling shutterbugs were on the scene stealing frames, and the dignity of the freshly dead. The tabloids would feast well tonight.

The flash and pop of the Kodak Beau Brownie broke both the stunned hush of the crowd and the thick curtain of the night. What it revealed was the image of Vaughn Sanicola, shock and wonder forever etched on his face, and come morning, scream sheets from coast to coast.

He was dressed in an immaculate white opera coat, matching pants with a jet black stripe from hip to high polished wingtip. If it wasn’t for the cauterized bullet sized hole in his eye, you’d think Vaughn was lounging on a settee after a wild set with his friends Skeets Herfurt and Gene Traxler. He definitely shouldn’t be splayed roadside, broken and shattered, like a Big Red Cream Soda bottle.

None of this mattered to the shutterbugs who were busy snapping photo after photo and dropping bursting little bulbs in the street like the Luftwaffe just over the horizon. They captured every detail, frozen forever in time. Vaughn Sanicola, trumpet savant and hit of the grandstand, captured in his most vulnerable state yet. With only the blood red carnation, tucked neatly in his lapel, to protect him.