BANK ROBBERS

He waits in the snow. It’s late afternoon, but that winter version that seems darker than night. His breath melts in midair. And what would there be to see, anyway? His invisible warmth? He feels nothing. And what would there be to feel?

She pulls up. She saw him, it feels like, seventy blocks ago. His gray hat, the gray sky, his gray exhalations. He is everything - the pavement, the cement buildings, every cloud in Brooklyn - and through this ubiquitousness he melts into nothing, and she can barely stand the feel of those layers of clothing on her skin.

The Future:

He’s bleeding from a bullet to the approximate torso. It doesn’t matter, he’s dying. She knows in his version she’s the one bleeding to death on the hotel floor, and he laments her body and his inability to protect her from plot devices. In her version, his life is slowly bleeding out on the shitty carpet. She feels relieved, then a pang of guilt, and then freedom again, the freedom of every mountain range on earth.

Now:

She pauses the car and he ducks himself in. Her car is black. They smile and make small talk too inconsequential for anyone to write about. Talk so small they feel they are asleep. And they could be, they’ve done this so many times before. The faint smell of adrenaline at the back of their sinuses, then nothing, nothing. And it’s that faint smell that keeps them coming back. They could get jobs. Working as a telemarketer or barista isn’t great, but it wouldn’t kill them. (The pun is decent, but she doesn’t say it out loud.)

She parks. They peck a violet, thin lipped kiss. He throws the door open in a wave of action, and strictly for action’s sake. She waits, maybe too long, and opens the door as if the handle steals her strength. She closes it slowly. A key difference between people; those who linger in the car, and those who rush out.

When they first started they fought over themselves, like tripping over shoelaces. Once was on the subway. It was quiet and hurtful, shallow barbs filled with poison. And when they’d finished he sat in silence, then offered a ten year old girl his seat, as though it mattered. As though a selfish kindness could be counted a plus. And she kept her seat and stared at an ad for business school. These fuckers, they all think we should be grateful for the smallest nugget of decency.