By Sikivu Hutchinson (short story excerpt)

Hell or high water, he was gonna be sharp for his first day of work doing rent-a-cop duty at the bling bling palace on Fig and 8th.

Hector stood in the downtown library bathroom mirror counting the wrinkles tic tac toeing from his temple to his right eye.  He’d noticed them five years ago; covering them with his hair, grown out longer since he’d been kicked out of the Corps.  The right side had always been his coyote side, the wily side, the one he could lie out of and escape detection most times.  The side guaranteed to throw interlopers off the scent. The side kissed to pieces by his last fair weather love. The side zapped first by the laser light of the new world the morning he was born, the countdown to death beginning in a black whimper…