“I’m just saying, there’s a gap in the video where we don’t see what happened when George Floyd ended up on the ground.”

The man who spoke these words was wiry and tanned. Hair lank and damp from the constant unrelenting humidity. His worn-out tank top emphasized his slight build rather than highlight any muscles, as he had hoped.

The same argument going on for days now.

While the cities burned.

The two, a couple, were long time neighbors in the apartment complex. An overweight man who looked like he never really graduated to the ranks of responsible adulthood from being the middle school bully. And there was Doughboy’s girlfriend, a pink-haired banshee, bug-eyed pinched face on the bony frame of a woman who developed early and peaked at 14. She had the misfortune of not discovering doling out easy blowjobs wins no friends.

Doughboy said, gesticulating, arm flab flapping up and down, “That’s just ignorant. Shit! And racist, too. That’s why you obsess over this shit, Sean.”

Sean’s eyes bored into Doughboy.

Pink Bitch had to pipe up, too, “Something jus’ wrong with you.”

Sean narrowed his eyes and spat out, “Denitra, just because you fucked half the black guys in high school…”

“The fuck you saying?” she said, head doing the ghetto chicken-head bob.

Denitra pressed a finger into Sean’s chest. Sean thrust his face into hers. “Randy, get your coalburning bitch out of my fucking face!”

Randy jiggled over to the both of them, fists clenched at the side, exhaling through his nose like a bull.

Randy swung wide on Sean. Sean ducked out of the way just in time to avoid the punch, but not in time to avoid Randy’s charge. The impact of Randy’s head against Sean’s sternum jarred Sean hard enough to snap jaws together.

They tumbled into the bushes lining the walkway. Sean thrashed like a crack rat and slipped an arm around Randy’s blubber neck into a guillotine. Randy clawed at Sean’s face.

“Get the fuck off ME!” Sean yelled.

Randy’s cheeto- and pot-infused sweat sickened and enraged Sean.

“I’m gonna kill ya’. Insulting muh girl. Running yo’ bitch mouth. Soon as I get outta this,” Randy said as he brought his weight to bear like a massive white grub.

Sean reached into his pocket, felt for the steel ring and G10 scales on the handle. His index finger inserted into the ring; the rest of his fingers clasped the handle.

Karambit.

Sean pulled out a wicked inward curved blade. He slipped the karambit underneath Randy, between their bodies, driving the blade towards the neck.

The tip of the blade caught under the corner of Randy’s jaw. Sean increased the pressure on the back of Randy’s neck as the other hand pulled hard.

Muscles.

Trachea.

Carotid.

Jugular.

Severed in a vicious ripping motion.

A flood of red covered Sean, soaking his chest and pants to the tops of his socks.

Anything decent inside Sean snapped. He gave a volcanic shove and Randy’s corpse flopped to the side.

Denitra keened, holding her hands to her mouth. She recoiled at the burning blood lust alighting Sean’s eyes.

Dork.

Incel.

Nerd.

Killer.

He pounced on her. Sean’s fingers hooked into her tube top, ripping it free, pierced nippled titties jerking back and forth in the breeze.

She split left as he came right. Quick reflexes honed from years of dodging Randy when he was drunk saved her fat ass.

For a moment.

Denitra shot for the front door; missing the handle, she slammed face first into the door when Sean rammed into her upper back.

He grabbed and smacked at her. She bucked at his 130-pound frame. Her blubber was no help; Sean seemed to be made of concrete sacks.

A metallic glint before her eyes. Then something tore at her nose, tore through her nose, and she realized: the fucking little fag CUT OFF MY FUCKING NOSE.

Sean wrenched her pink ponytail and slashed at her ears.

The top, outer, and lower ear lobes were gone in three savage strokes.

The blade gouged at her face.

Her eyes.

Her lips.

Steel raked and scraped across her teeth, biting through cheek tissue, grinding into her molars.

She could feel his boner poking her in the back fat rolls.

With relief, she grew dizzy and passed out.

***

Mr. Kolowitz came out to see what the commotion was. His arthritic knees were shit. The steady stream of Fox News left him emotionally drained. But the world was a terrifying place these days.

Two doors down, he saw that fidgety young man, Sean, kneeing at the door of his trashy friends’ apartment.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he walked up to Sean.

Sean turned to him, face a mask of red, cracking a big white smile.

Chunks of flesh with red-stained pink hair were stuck between his teeth.

“Your fault, old man!”

Mr. Kolowitz stumbled back, falling on his rump.

“Your fault, old man!”

“Your fault!”

“Yours!”

The accusatory words came through his hearing aids, punctuated by swipes in the air of the red-stained knife.

Mr. Kolowitz pulled the Walther PPQ from his jacket pocket and shot Sean through the heart.