Hungry For The Truth by David Parlato

The tall man with his cane, white, red at the tip, sweeps, taps his way into the room. Black hat with a flat top, brim all around. Black trench coat, open in front, flows like dark wings in the wind. He brings the storm in with him. Rivulets of rainwater run down his black clothes, gleaming in the bright lights of the interrogation room.

Two guards, also dressed in black, stand at opposite ends of the table. One holds a four-foot length of rubber hose in his misshapen hands, a large bucket of water at his feet. The other holds a coil of barbed wire in gloved hands, a haphazard array of dirty dental tools splayed out on his end of the table.

“Tell me what I want to know,” asks the tall man as lightning, followed by rumbling thunder, makes the room even brighter.

“Fuck you,” the prisoner replies, spit droplets flying, but the tall man just throws his head back, laughs and laughs, shaking rainwater off his wings. Eventually he stops laughing, leans his hook nose, his beak mouth into the face of the prisoner. “Keep it up,” he whispers, “I do prefer dining on live food.”

© 2012 David Parlato

David Parlato, born in Los Angeles, California, now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has a BA Degree in English from California State University at Northridge. He is an educator, a composer, a jazz musician, a visual artist and a writer of poetry and short fiction.

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