Prey

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Every summer they come, pale men with hairy stomachs hanging out over their belts, sucking in the sun into their souls. They come with big smiles, and wilderness in their eyes, like predators looking for prey. They sit under the burning sun, rolling Pina Colada over their tongues, the day waxing into jet black emptiness. With aching hearts and blood shot eyes they leave the resorts and hostels to find someone to fill their emptiness.

Walking down the streets, passing the restaurants, coffee shops and excited tourists with cameras hanging all over their bodies, they move their necks like night owls looking for mice, just to find the forbidden places in dark streets where they get the glow they crave for in their lives.
– Are you a virgin?
She looks over her shoulder at Mr. Nelson with one of his brown eyes hanging on a thread, wishing he would lose them both. If he could´t see her pain, she would feel more peace inside. He pushes her down on the mat, and she looks up at heave and starts to count the stars.

When the blackness within him has taken its fill to live on for another year, he sits up and rests while petting her head to still the cry he already knows too much about. It´s the same cry he had in his heart as a little boy, and he understands how to soothe her pain like no one else. Fogged memories chain them to each other, they are like reflections on a surface. Blowing his alcohol filled breathe into her face, he kisses her goodnight. Next year he´ll bring her a new bear with two eyes.

Prey is from one of My Published Books, an anthology published in Australia.