The Color Red

by Zvi A. Sesling

          The motel in Hyannis is modern on the outside and worn inside, sheets frayed, comforter with holes, furniture scratched, finish rubbed off in spots. But the place has a bar, The Light Bulb.

          A woman sitting at the bar drinking a Mojito or Marguerita smiles at me, probably because I am the only other one in the bar besides the bartender who is a woman, so I smile back and ask her name.

          “Maya,” she tells me. “What’s yours?”

          “Brent.” I move over to the barstool next to her.

          Maya is a redhead. I always prefer redheads. In fact, those are the only women I ever go out with because there is something unpredictable about them, a bit volatile, fresh, frisky, and as I said, unpredictable.

          I also like the color red, and she has on a brown sweater and a red scarf, brown slacks, and red shoes.

          I buy a round for us and then a couple more drinks. We are both a bit tipsy.

          “Your place or mine?” she asks, but before I can answer she says, “Mine, of course.”

          We hold on to each other and the wall as we stagger to her room, go in and fall to the floor laughing.

          “I’ll go to the bathroom and get ready, we’ll meet in bed, you, me naked.”

          She crawls to the bathroom, and I wait what seems an hour but is only ten minutes according to the clock on the night table.

          She comes out sober, naked, and holding a knife over her head and charges toward me, yelling some incoherent words.

          I throw a pillow at her, then grab another one which takes the knife thrust. It gives me the second I need to grab her wrist and force her to drop the knife. She tries reaching for it, but I am quicker and, holding the handle, jam the blade into her chest. Red blood spurts, then oozes out. To make sure she will not survive I slit her throat. Now there is lots of red.

I put on my clothes and go to my car, an old red Chevy and begin driving west. One hundred miles later, on a bridge over some river, I toss the knife in the water. I think of the twenty or so other knives soaked in red that I disposed of as I drive cross country meeting redheads along the way.

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.