Читать книгу For Display Purposes Only - David Seymour - Страница 9

The man who was killed died. The gun

had gone ballistic in the parking lot. Up ’til then

all he’d done was have nothing to lose.

His hair was growing right out of his face.

Earlier, from the precipitate sky, hail the size

of golf balls pelted the clubhouse. Errant

hail-sized golf balls shanked the clubhouse

before the golfers ran for cover from the weather.

This occurred. On the fringe of suburbs

and their evident neighbouring. The cars

remained parked in the lot where he fell,

immobile necessary machinery.

The woman at the scene sporting leopard-print

spandex was way too realistic. She lacked

conspicuous panty lines. Her description,

though relevant, was weapon focused.

The report from the shots fired was heard variably

as a calendar sliding off a kitchen wall and the after-

vacuum of implosion. With decibel fluctuation,

distance and Doppler effect, reports varied.

Between the houses backing onto the tenth green,

aphids gathered all sounds within the 250-

to 45,000-cycle range of their tympana

and slept uninterviewed in the shade of hydrangea.

The passing cab driver had the largest

hippocampus among the onlookers, being

the least lost. This was scientifically proven

though need not be mentioned in the final.

Others were directionless – what they saw

they now knew had never not happened –

wondering how they had arrived here,

how here arrives. Post-storm light

struck the police cruiser windshield,

behaving as particles, or waves,

depending. Even as testimonials

hardened into notebook fact.

Plausible rival hypotheses

will arise in court. The incident

began more suddenly than the victim

expected, and will last much longer.