Hiss

The hiss of early morning sprinklers reminded you of the rattlesnakes back home. It made you instinctively curl your toes inward and pull your feet back. This place could not be more different from home.

This place was behind a mechanized wrought iron gate. A labyrinth of cul de sacs, grass so green it looked fake, and black cars in the drive way. Even though you hadn’t been home in years, you didn’t fit in here.

The knife was buried deep in the pocket of your double knee jeans. The pockets going almost down to your knees. You worried the blood may soak through, but that seemed the least of your worries as you made eye contact with an elderly man bending down to pick up the morning newspaper.

No matter what way you sliced it. You were suspicious.

You let your eyes linger on the man’s for too long. His brow furrowing as his wife calls for him inside. Yet he doesn’t pull his gaze away.

Later, he would tell the police how your eyes looked like pure evil. How you walked with no particular destination in mind. How different you looked.

You’d hear the sirens in your hotel room that night. It wouldn’t be long before a police officer showed up at the front desk with a warrant and the maître d would show them to your room.

They’d kick down the door in near silence and snap the handcuffs on your wrists. The TV would be on and her photo on screen. The true killer on the news with tears in her eyes. Her hands shaking with the memories of blood and yours relax against the metal as you remember taking the knife from her hands and placing it in the pocket of your jeans.

The days following your arrest, word would spread that the landscaper was to blame. The men and women of the neighborhood kept close watch on their gardeners, burying the garden sheers in the back of the shed. The first time they’d stepped foot in it for years.

She would receive flowers, cakes, promises, and wishes in the coming days. None of it was enough.