heads will roll

The three were standing still. Two men, one woman. Still in their suits. Spotless, or they would have been but for the crimson. Slowly leaking. As if time were slowed down. Then time seemed to return to normal speed, and one by one, they toppled over. The air was stale. The only sound after the thud was the blood, now spitting out from the gashes in each of their throats. They had fallen forward, so you couldn’t see the shock in the eyes of one, and the blankness, a fate worse than death in the eyes of another, and thankfulness in the eyes of the third. This last had been cutting himself all the way home. Trying to gain control of a life and universe that had seemed to veer and careen wildly out of proportion. In a way, they would have been glad to have it ended. To not know anymore. Had they known that it would be ending. But the blade was swift, and in one slicing motion, slit all of their wrists.

Time was at a standstill. And as if urged by a clock to move, it began to. After they toppled over, six sweepers came in. Covered in overalls and masks. Within minutes, much faster than anyone who was actually tasked with the job of cleaning up crime scenes, had ever cleared up a crime scene, there was no trace. No blood. No bodies. Nothing. They would be exhumed. Then all evidence would disappear. The conspiracy theorists would wonder where these heroes tasked with the finding of live able land were, and their caws and craws might gain some momentum. But time heals all wounds, even hides the truth. The more time that passed, the less likely it would be that anyone would care. They would all start to lose interest and then move on to the next shiny conspiracy theory, or truth, aligned as those two were, more often than one might expect. 

He closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. This was proving to be far more difficult than he had suspected or ever expected. But who could have predicted this. From the time they had rolled the dice in that room, and all three of them had gone their separate ways, who could have believed that it was anything but three young men playing out childhood games. But they had known. All of them had known. He assumed they had. He certainly had. He had felt it in his gut, a feeling that would not go away. A feeling that could not go away. It had been much realer than anything, and had consumed his life. Now all three of them were at the pinnacle of success in the world, and a very enviable pinnacle, since it was invisible, and they had their anonymity. This was the kind of success even the visible top one percent could only dream of. The kind of success no one knew existed but those that were here. There were a handful of people who were there. Him, and his two friends made up half of that list.