The Butcher's Kiss

Preface: this story is the second of two first round entries in a writing comp called NYC FLASH FICTION.  Writers are given a 48 hour turnaround time to produce a 1000 word piece based on an outline dictated by contest judges and sponsors. 1400 writers are participating, and my group of 29 writers was assigned the category of: ROMANCE - setting: GROCERY STORE - prop: digital camera for our first round piece.  
 
Our second round entry had to be: ACTION ADVENTURE ... setting JUNGLE - prop: butterscotch candy ...  
 
 
Plot line:A wartime nurse’s resolve is tested when she tries to find comfort in a place that only yields sorrow and pain.
 
 
I get paid to lie to men. I let them climb in through my eyes, mere boys really, who couldn't heed the urgings of their mothers.  They're hollowed by what they've seen in-country, and hardened by what they've done.  
 
The doctors give them back their bodies, sometimes in pieces.  But what about their humanity, that thing that's suppose to make them gentle men.
 
I always make it a point to find the ones who can't be saved.  I'll brush my lips over the curl of his ear and whisper in my softest southern lilt, "I love you."  
 
I kiss him on his forehead, sometimes his lips.  
 
I am in that moment what he needs most.  His mother. Girlfriend. Wife. Lover.  A last breath of sweetness.  
 
Tonight however, I am the hunter, and the butcher.  
 
The moon has a shroud wrapped tight around his shoulders.  Cerulean mist flirts with the speckled flakes of the Mekong Delta taking me back home to the bayous of Louisiana.   My adopted em gái, little sister, Sadie and I paddled our xuồng silently as not to disturb our quarry, Siamese crocodiles.  
 
Back home, Daddy and I would hunt gators and 'coons many a night armed with no more than a Bowie knife each, and his .22.    
 
The croc meat here was freshwater sweet, and every now and again Sadie and I would fix up a cook out for folks at the base with grilled croc and tiger prawns, chicken and a roasted suckling pig traded for with cigarettes, chocolate bars and butterscotch candy.    
 
I called Tran Thi Mai Loan, Sadie because she reminded me of my little sister back home, who I'd argue with over who was cuter, Michael Jackson or Donny Osmond. Mai called me con chuồn chuồn, dragonfly, because she said I had the wings of an angel when it came to nursing our wounded; but the claws of a tiger when it came to wrestling and slicing crocs.  
 
We bait the river with live chickens. I spin 'em by their necks like a sling shot until I hear, "crack!"  
 
I slice open the innards to let them bleed out in the water. All virtually in one motion.  Clutching the flapping carcasses by their legs, Sadie and I dunk 'em in and out of the water.  The dinner bell for our dinner.  
 
It doesn't take long for the river and the entire jungle to start bubbling with the palpations of ravenous crocs.  I could hear their air bubbles punch the surface of the water near our canoe.  
The pot was boiling with blood and muscled flesh.  The crocs massive armored bodies and tails cresting and slapping the water like thunder in the rain, with their murderous wake threatening to capsize us.  That was fine.  We needed them close to be in a position to spear one in the small of the skull, instantly paralyzing it.  
 
We dropped the chickens in, and were surrounded by teeth no longer seethed.  
But just as we started to focus in on one croc in particular we felt the whiz of bullets flying between us and then heard the crackle of gunfire coming from the tree line.  
 
The distinct cry of the rifles told me they were AK47s, which meant Viet Cong. The dark of the night told me they weren't firing at us but rather firing on the sounds of the feeding frenzy around us.  They were hoping to kill a croc, then harvest the dead floating carcass after.  A coward's way to hunt, not the way Sadie and I were taught by our daddies.
 
Sadie and I knew we needed to be gone quick before the men among the trees realized there was more in the water than hungry crocs.  
 
The Viet Cong kept firing, randomly and indiscriminately with only the sound of the crocs to guide their aim.  
 
I reached my bloodied hand into the water to recover my oar which had fallen in the chaos, when it happened.  A young croc had a grip on my hand at the wrist. I could hear the snap - crackle and pop of my own bones as he clamped down, determined to drag me under and drown me, and then share my flesh with the others.  
 
Sadie bellied her way over to try to knife him, but that only strengthened his resolve and he was seesawing us into the water using my body weight against me.
 
I pulled my Bowie knife and didn't aim for the croc but rather for my own wrist.  Two deep quick slices, and croc did the rest, snapping my hand off at the wrist for a meal.  
 
Within seconds Sadie wrapped a tourniquet around my bloodied stump, pressed my body low in the canoe and started paddling down river.  The whir of the steel mosquitos still buzzed around us, but lessened as we made our way back to the base.    
 
I didn't dare close my eyes.  I knew all too well that sleeping meant dying.
 
Nonetheless, I did pass out.
 
When I woke up in recovery, Sadie was there, kissing me on the cheeks with tears in her eyes.  Just like my other em gái back home would have.  Sitting there with tears of my own now, Sadie echoed the same words I'd said a hundred times ...  
 
You're so brave.  
 
You're gonna be fine.
 
I love you.
 
Sweet words and kisses for "a butcher."