Flash Friday, the missing flash October, twinkled, Asphalt, Copper in Flash Friday

twinkled asphalt copper

Glass twinkled on my forehead, the cop turned the flash-light away and apologized. He almost apologized. I’m sure he meant too. Bit’s of glass and bits of my forehead littered the asphalt. ‘Who cleans this stuff up?’ I thought, or maybe it was the cop who thought that. He should know. Maybe not.

I had this philosophy professor once, he was like a hundred years old, a professor emeritus, he taught one honors class a year. One morning he set his notes aside and wondered out loud how magical it was that he would leave the room in disarray, students leaving half full coffee cups, saran wrap with muffin crumbs, a whole litany of detritus, and he’d come back and the room was spotless. One of the brown nosed grad students suggested perhaps it was the janitor. People tittered. The Doctor looked confused and then angry. That was the last year he taught.

I tasted iron and copper, the taste of my own blood, and I tried to speak through it. The cop with the flashlight was gone, he was out of my range, other people, maybe cops too, didn’t seem to hear me. I knew words weren’t coming out right, they came out all coppery, but the gurgling should have done something. Confused and angry.

It shouldn’t feel that familiar, I thought or maybe the cop with the flashlight thought, confused and angry, it should feel foreign, odd, like craving a pickle or ignoring a shooting star. I could hear a woman crying, it seemed in stereo with speakers misaligned, like I’d hear the upper register only of the sobs and then a slight echo or retort like after a gun shot. She wasn’t in my range. The cop with the flashlight turned away from the sound and I could see his face in under-lit profile. Haggard, hard, not cruel hard, but frozen hard, like letting it thaw would cost him everything.
I tried to spit out words through the copper when the sheet went over the part of my face that wasn’t on the asphalt. This is wrong, I gurgled or maybe it was the cop, this is wrong.