I was so fucking hungover that when I saw the body, I thought I was looking into a mirror. I tried not to take that thought personally. It laid there, not a man anymore, but a thing. Meat. A beached whale, soaking up neon in the gutter. On a night like this, it was hard to tell what was blood and what was water.
I imagined the wheatpaste poster behind the stiff as a tombstone: "here lies Max Payne: loving widower, resented ex-husband, friend to bartenders everywhere." Too bad I was still standing. My gutter was somewhere else in this city, reserved in my name 50 years in advance. Until then, I had work to do.
fuck goddammit. how do i delete this