Wisconsin Berry
read by charles musser
Wisconsin Berry smoked revolution mixed into the tobacco ash on the end of her cigarette.
She held a passionlessly cold and calculating fear in the sweat beneath her skin.
She thought the revolt would be televised, an uninterrupted feed of homicidal eyes
Two flares of rage beneath the black tarpaulin sky. Big Brother intervened.
Wisconsin Berry took a chainsaw to a telephone pole and dodged the unnatural electrical jolts.
She held power paintballed into her bone-dry lungs, bolts of cancerous masses.
She laughed mechanically, maniacally, and shined her shoes with spitballs and tucked in their tongues.
She learned that shame belongs to those glued to the leather train seats, not sprinting along the rails.
Wisconsin Berry swam through the deepest lagoon with her back like slender submarine hide.
She held guilt rigid within the tight fibers of her muscles, tortured with corrosive cyanide burning.
She blinked languid eyes, the bubbles on her eyeballs glistening against the open surfaces.
Fugitive dived, predator saw, fingers followed. Flashing Fed-light blazed like sunlight.
Wisconsin Berry captured a blue jay in a cage in her aorta.
The metal bullet pierced it with a burst of feather and gristle that stuck to her innard's walls
And sparked in her the kind of sweat and essential terror that lets you know that you're alive.
Then she died. The rookie copper kicked away her gun, drawn and cocked and almost shot. He lived.
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