The Cut of the Haiku
A scrapbook on a longitude
cutting autumn wind
samurai sword now blunt
leaning against the wall
Iunderstand Don Quixote. And we are all Walter Mitty, of course. I do not like travelling for the sake of travel and hate tourism more.
To be a samurai — ah, there, there’s purpose.
`I want four big multi-explosions in the colour of our national flag! Hammer shapes!´ el presidente had said, in the morning.
`I’m sorry general secretary sir, but we can’t make hammers, only circles!´ his assistant had whispered.
`I decide we can’t do hammers, not you!´
`Yes, sir!´
`Now go, sort it out, the people demand the party starts well, in my honor!´
She marched out almost at running speed.
♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪…♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪! She had pulled her mobile from breast pocket as she marched: `Yes, four large red fireworks, and blue ones with pink…yes, for that 3..2..1..go part!´
El presidente’s assistant had lowered the phone, looked around, lifted it; `and yes, a telescopic rifle; she’s got four shots.´
The angle was sharp, her position insecure and her job not without such difficulties. Payment was sporadic, if at all and retirement benefits non-existent, with enemies real and very existent. Still, she squeezed the trigger, slowly, carefully, delicately, as if holding a flower petal between fingers, keeping the tension at its very edge, and waited for her target’s bald head to pass by the corner in the road, sitting in his white limousine.
It was to be her last shot, in reality attempt. Not that she was reaching retirement age, for no such constraints existed, but more because in the apartment above her aim the window opened equally carefully, without glint, crosshairs aimed at her forehead.
When El Presidente was shot and his motorcade screeched to a halt where the banned opposition flag hung, silence very suddenly reigned in his very sudden absence, as he lay comically bent forward over a car door, a sinewy spit of blood arching from his dead mouth onto the cold cement.
`They are too scared to — !´ he’d nearly finished saying.
But after the shot and screech all that could be heard was the fluttering of the official welcome decorations for several long lost minutes while those in uniform eyed each other and chose sides. Irrelevant.
She had dropped the rifle, slowly, almost carefully, and dropped forward, bullet hole neatly in her forehead. The rifle had clattered down the steps in front of her and had gone off, killing the first deputy mayor and cocaine supplier.
But the president had been shot, or at least wounded. This made a great difference. If he had been shot and not just wounded he could be discarded, almost unnoticed. But if he was wounded and conscious, the greatest care was needed to ensure one was seen being caring, and not merely caring about the blood spilled on hands and silk.
