He Knows What He Wants

by Zvi A. Sesling

          “So, Sam, when did all this start?”

          “I guess third or fourth grade, Dr. Heffer.”

          “And what got you started?”

          “Well, Mother once said a cat scratched my face and that’s why I have all these scars. One day this stray cat wandered into our yard, I tried to grab it, but it scratched my arm and ran off. I tried getting a quail and then a dog with my bow and arrow, but I was ten years old and, of course, missed both times.”

          “It seems you are not successful at most things like school and work, either.”

          “Well, Doc, when I was seventeen, I took Janey Lawson out and before going home strangled her and dumped her in Image Lake with some rocks tied to her. They never found her. I claimed I was in bed all of the night. Never could pin it on me.”

          “No remorse, Sam?”

          “Maybe a few minutes. But then Charlie Cheever bullied me at work, so I followed him a few blocks and then came up behind him and stabbed him with the knife I’d stolen from the hardware store. Got him enough times to finish him.”

          “And that was your first?”

“Oh, no, Janey Lawson, remember?”

          “Of course, but how many bodies did you do in?”

          “Probably fifteen, Doc. Usually hitchhikers or streetwalkers, men and women. All whores. But I’ve enough of them. My next thing is shrinks, at least one before they inject me.”

Zvi A. Sesling, Brookline, MA Poet Laureate (2017-2020), has published numerous poems and flash/micro fiction and won international prizes. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has published four volumes and three chapbooks of poetry. His flash fiction book is Secret Behind the Gate. He lives in Brookline, MA. with his wife Susan J. Dechter.