Identity (100)

(Note: This story arc began in Chef. For more, follow the Snapshots tag.)

I can give you five names, each complete with house, credit card, driver’s license, car, and personality: Louis wears baseball caps, a thick brown moustache, t-shirts, and jeans, and can be seen every Saturday mowing his lawn; Dean is a self-published author, and leaves his studio apartment only to write at the nearby coffee shop—all the baristas know him; Percy wears a suit and lives in a penthouse; Josh volunteers at the pet shelter; Garret is a personal trainer.

Those five men are as close to me as you’re going to get. I’ve stopped asking myself who I am.

TV Magic (100)

(Note: This story arc began in Chef. For more, follow the Snapshots tag.)

In my time at acting school, I started watching cop shows. The thrill of it got to me, and I soon realized that I was rooting for the bad guy. I wanted the system to fail: wanted the cop to run out of leads, wanted the killer to go free. Every time, tv magic would come through. There would be some breakthrough that the cop was clever or lucky enough to figure out, and the guy would be caught.

In the real world, there is no tv magic. The system fails. The cop runs out of leads. I go free.

Five Ws, One H (100)

(Note: This story arc began in Chef. For more, follow the Snapshots tag.)

I’m the how, I already know what, the buyer tells me who, who tells me where and when, and no one tells me why.

I don’t like the term ‘buyer.’ I am not bought; I am paid. But my services are bought, and ‘buyer’ sounds better than ‘client’ or ‘payer.’ ‘Client’ implies a relationship. I don’t have relationships with buyers. ‘Payer’ sounds either grammatically incorrect, or else it’s just a little too much like ‘prayer,’ and I don’t have any of those, either.

Routine gives me opportunity. Times and locations are chosen accordingly.

I don’t ask why. Neither should you.

Chef (100)

(Based off of this picture from 100wordstory.org)

The man was nothing. He was a body following a routine. The watch on his wrist told him what to do. I could see him through the glass of the door. His face was blurred, but I knew it was him. It was 9:57am, his usual time. I watched his chest rise and fall. I saw him look out the window, fist on his chin. His empty eyes saw nothing but the glass inches in front of them. He couldn’t see me, watching his shell of a life. The man was nothing but a couple grand. I pulled the trigger.