Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 409(@300wpm)
Chasity…
He turned the radio down, but she could still hear the memory of the music as it vibrated the car at a lower volume.
“You ever kill anyone before?” He sounded as if he were asking her if she’d ever skydived, or gone skinny-dipping.
She scoffed and turned away. For a split second, she considered lying. That would perhaps give her some edge, something for him to be concerned about. She then thought better of it. He seemed pretty good at spotting a poker face. “Of course not.”
He snickered. “You say it like it’s beneath you or somethin’. It’s not.”
“Of course it is. My job is to try and safeguard, notify and help people by providing information and photos of current events. I am supposed to—”
“It’s an ego driven profession, and you’re full of shit if you say otherwise.” His jaw tightened and his expression drew taut. “You people aren’t doing this shit out of the kindness of your hearts. You go to school to get a degree, then you take that fucking piece of paper, jam it up the public’s asses, and destroy lives. You disrupt people’s trust and rupture their well-being. You skew facts. You manipulate. Toy with. Troll. Lie. Ask humiliating and private questions. Demand answers to shit that is none of your damn business. This is all driven by notoriety, greed, and money.”
“We dismantle misinformation, and as for me, I let my photos do the talking. We serve our community. Isn’t being a smuggler based on notoriety, greed, and money?”
His lips curled and he nodded. “Yes it is, minus the notoriety. It’s a shadow, underground, lonely profession, and the less attention we get, the more money we make. What I do is real. You can hold it. A glass bottle. The wrapping paper of a carton of Marlboro. What you do is an illusion. A cockeyed mirror image of the truth.”
“…Pictures tell no lies.”
“Pictures lie all the time, and you know it. No filter required. Pair it with an alarming headline like, ‘Government taxes the poor and gives benefits to the rich,’ then show a chow line. Under that picture, it can say, in the tiniest print, the smallest font available, that this is actually a line for motherfuckers waiting to get a pair of Adidas or the newest iPhone, but it’s just for illustration purposes.’” He sucked his teeth and laughed.
“That’s not what I do, and that’s not how this works. The picture of your example didn’t lie. The writer did, to try and incentivize an emotional response from the readers. You’ve twisted this in your mind. What you’ve described is disingenuous.”
“Your whole profession is disingenuous. I know you’ve heard the expression. Even a broken clock is correct twice a day. Tell two truths and ten lies. You get a piece of information and run with it. The hell with the families of the people whose privacy you invade. All you people care about is getting the latest story. Gossip. Being the first to drop a dime on someone.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. We’re not all like that. Some of us care.”
He scoffed and shook his head. She knew at that point that it didn’t matter what she said. He was determined to see her in a certain light. Where is this animosity coming from? He turned the music back up a touch as ‘Unloyal,’ by Summer Walker, started to play. She almost tapped her foot to the beat, forgetting where she was and what she was doing. All of it was surreal. Scary and strange.
Minutes passed. Silent, lonely minutes. She wanted to speak to him, hear his deep voice crack the silence and peace trickle out like the runny yolk of an egg. Why would I want to talk to him? If I keep him talking, we can start bonding. I can make him feel comfortable and then, I can get away.
I’m going crazy…Let me be the one to break the silence… push a button to make him talk and reveal things about himself.
“You asked me if I killed anyone before. I replied that no, I haven’t. I believe you have killed someone before. Did you ask me that question, knowing my answer in advance, all so you could brag about how you had done that and to ensure I remember who’s in control?”
“I asked you about killing anyone because you may have to for this assignment. It could be in self-defense.” He shrugged, “Don’t sit over there and act like you’re better than me… Killing is human nature—when one feels threatened, disrespected, or their life on the line. It’s as natural as sleeping and eating.”
“Don’t you have any morals?”
“Yes, but they’re not the same as yours. I don’t believe in other people’s rules and beliefs—I just believe in my own, so I don’t follow the same code of conduct as you. You motherfuckers kill people every day with your microphones jammed in people’s faces… ruin people… but you look down on people like me because I use a gun, a knife, or a bow and arrow instead of the click of a camera. At least I’m honest.”