I hear word on the street is that I don't do dialog. I feel that dialog isn't always a necessary plot device and that a story can operate within normal bounds without the hindrance of talking. As a result, my short stories take a minimalist approach when it comes to spoken interaction and I instead place a higher focus on progression of events. In the world of short stories--at least ones as short as I write--I feel like for dialog to be a part of the story, it has to drive the story somehow. All this nonsense is just to say that while I both like and appreciate dialog, I generally save it for longer works. Having said that, I hope you will enjoy my employment of dialog in this here short story (hey, busting out short story after short story is harder than busting out repeated poems even if I prefer the short stories to the poems. Juss' sayin').
Just some background on the story here: Lightning Brian is a guy I work with. I gave him the nickname, because we have three Brians at work and all my coworkers always called him LB, which is short for Little Brian. I decided that I would change LB to mean Lightning Brian, and I am now working on developing my art style into a comic book style, where I will then make a comic book about him. Switching gears so hard into a primarily pen and ink art style where I am more used to a charcoal-heavy style has been interesting, but fun. I decided I should probably start writing some stuff for the comic book. Have at it.
Lightning Brian: A Chronicle to Remember
By: David Mathis
The soft scraping sound of a person who has a tendency to drag the feet alerted Lightning Brian that someone was coming. Lightning Brian was sitting with his back to the wall in an abandoned building, the chewed-out ceiling pulp piled in the corners like stalagmites. Behind him, the tangled lines of graffiti spelled out something illegible--it vaguely looked like "Froze" but it was probably something completely different. The soft scraping noise came to a halt and a hooded figure filled the door, but only half as much as a normal man could. He had a certain slim quality that seemed odd at first. His name was Armless Justice. He was a hero in Lightning Brian's eyes, though he tended to work with a certain air of secrecy so that not many people knew him. Armless Justice's hood fell back seemingly of its own accord, and a handsome face greeted Lightning Brian. Armless Justice's eyes were sullen and empty as normal. The ladies always said that he was pretty to look at until you got to his blank eyes. His eyes had been bled colorless by the obsidian underbelly of the city--he had seen things terrible and sickening; some argued that with each passing day, he became more like the enemy he fought. Those same people argued he would kill himself someday when he realized the monster he had become, or else be killed by a hero who was still noble enough to put the beast down. A chair slid out from the blackness of a corner of the room and Armless Justice sat down. He locked Lightning Brian into a hard stare before he opened his mouth. His words were heavy and cynical.
"Fuckin' hell, Brian. I heard old lizard head got snuffed.
"Yeah," Brian was staring at his untied shoelace. "He did."
"Heard it was you who did it. Heard you blew out half the windows in his office building."
Lightning Brian pulled a cigarette from an oversized coat pocket and put it in his mouth with unsteady hands. He flicked his finger slightly and a spark of electricity erupted--lit the cigarette as Lightning Brian inhaled. The knuckles on his right hand were blackened with bruises and crisscrossed with tracks of dried blood crusted over, but still new. Lightning Brian blew words wreathed in smoke.
"Well I didn't blow most of them--maybe a few. Damn, though. I almost caught a bullet--lots of bullets. All his guards had guns. I didn't know what to do," Lightning Brian looked shaken, but he kept talking "The league sent me on the mission. I didn't know what they--what I was up against. I thought he was small-time, you know? I thought he was a pushover. I--It was rough. He was part of some underground crime ring. Shipping a new experimental drug to some people around--not anyone I heard of at the league."
"You sound like an idiot. Own your assignments and control your collateral damage better next time. The league has to pay for property damages, which means your paycheck may come up a little short this month," Armless Justice stood up and his trench coat fell open. A bottle of vodka emerged from the dark insides, floating towards his chapped lips. He took a swig before he continued. "They didn't send me to tell you that. Hell, they didn't send me at all--I just came to congratulate you on a fuckin' hardcore assassination. They sent someone a year or so ago--some new talent--he failed. Caught a bullet to the face. Tried to make some lame-ass speech about justice. Tried to monologue like a god-damned comic book hero. Old lizard head shot him square in the mouth.”
Armless Justice looked around, admiring the graffiti and the crumbling ceiling. He gestured at the latter of the two.
"Looks like cottage cheese. You live here?"
Lightning Brian looked up at the ceiling and then back down at the floor. He laughed smoke—the smoke had more substance than the laugh.
“I’m homeless. I thought you knew that.”
“The fuck you are. The league pays us well enough to live anywhere in the city.”
Lightning Brian stood up, dusted his jeans off, and flicked his cigarette to the cold, concrete floor where it smoldered for a bit. He didn’t say anything, but headed towards the door. Armless Justice’s vodka bottle floated its way into the trench coat’s dark recesses and the coat closed itself up. The chair fled to the darkest corner of the room without the aid of human arms. Lightning Brian looked back into the room before he disappeared around the corner.
“I send all the money off to charity. I live at the homeless shelter down the road. It’s almost dinner time—I have to go.”
Lightning Brian pulled another cigarette from his pocket as he disappeared from sight, leaving his companion with more on his mind than when he had first entered the room.
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