Broke His Crown by Damien Barrett Jack and Jill... met in Western Civ when she had dropped her books while trying to open the door to the auditorium. The door was one of those dull heavy metal ones installed during the 1950's when everyone was running scared of the bombs. Like a metal door could stop radiation, anyways. Like anything could stop the radiation... memories of her baggy so soft he liked to rub his cheek against it blue sweater blossomed in his head in a kaleidoscope of thoughts. And the bright sunny time on the hill behind the sports center...reading Keats and Shelley on the perfect day rainy day...laughing over silly things in the supermarket. Went up the hill... to where her chocolate brown eyes sucked him in like the whirlpool filter at the bottom of the public pool of his childhood sucked in dead insects and leaves. A terrible scary thing it was, but Jack found himself drawn to it anyway loving the thrill of allowing himself to be pulled down lightly by the terrible swirling... "You can't!" he said. "I have to. You don't care about me any..." "Why? "I've already told you. I don't know." "It isn't fair." "Nothing's fair." To fetch a pail of water... breaking. Outside in the crisp antiseptic hallway Jack could see his face staring back up at him from the waxed tile floor. Worried eyes. Exhausted thoughts. He knew what the doctor was going to say as soon as the man turned the corner, his scuffed white sneakers squeaking lightly on the tile. Jack fell down... and light seemed to be trapped in the hollow between her breasts as she whirled around on one foot like a broken ballerina, staggering-spinning from the shotgun blast. The gaping exit wound looked like a larger version of the surprised O her mouth made when he burst through the door of the seedy bedroom to confront her with her lover. A snatch of nursery rhyme was crazily playing through his head and the acrid smell of the shotgun's blast mixed with the sharp metallic smell of their warm blood leaking into the mattress. broke his crown... Jack couldn't think through the buzzing in his head, like a fly stuck between windowpanes bouncing and buzzing relentlessly against the glass trying trying to get out, buzzing... ...gnawing, digging, eating away at his body. A disease in his body, a disease in his head. Jack turned the shotgun on himself... and Jill came tumbling after... ...and his blood, his body, his life, his essence merged one last time with the growing pool pushing a thick layer of dust across the dirty linoleum floor.