Flash Fiction Story #3-The Man from Hong Kong

"Behold, I have a Herculean chore.
How shall I manage to compose a theme?"

E.E Cummings


The two new lovers sat on the small doorstep of their small house in the old Brooklyn neighborhood. Quietly they watched the man from Hong Kong walk down their neighborhood carrying a colossal umbrella, and as he was walking by them they heard him humming ‘...Oh Susanna, don’t you cry for me….I come from Alabama with my banjo on my knee….’ .We do not know this mans name, but with a white T-shirt and a pair of light blue jeans -loose fitting and short -and a cigarette in his mouth, the girl baptized him O’Hara for reasons unknown to the boy.
We follow this O’ Hara down the street –He passes Joes pizza place, otherwise known as the place of the ‘felonious cocksucker with the intent to swallow’, he passes the two new lovers who are frightened of love, say’s hello to two old lovers, and glances at the Italian soccer players cursing at each other on the wet field. Under that colossal umbrella of his, he must have thought the day to be fine-looking, with the rain making all that brick and cement shimmer a little.
Tossing his cigarette and humming the last lyrics of his song, he decides to go up the narrow stairs of a friend’s house. We will baptize this friend Neruda. Neruda’s stomach was in charge of greeting all the guests, as it was always there first to welcome them in. Swinging his cane back and forth towards and away from his stomach, he contemplated the importance of punctuality when it came to a man’s death and was grateful when he saw O’Hara emerge out of that dim, narrow staircase on time. He invited him in, and offered him some tea, and laid before him three guns from which he could choose from. O’Hara chose the third one, and he must have thought it to be fine looking, with the sun making all that steel and wood shimmer a little. Neruda thanked him for choosing such a fine looking gun and took it amongst his plump fingers, pointed it amongst O’Hara’s eyes, and slowly pulled the trigger. Thinking of Alabama and how Susanna must have looked, and how her sugary tears must have tasted, O’Hara died with a smile.