What you're about to hear is based on actual events.

Listener discretion is advised.

Rain falls lightly from a bright, almost cloudless sky.

The day had been so humid up until the first rising crescendo of the cloud burst that

the air was nearly too thick to breathe.

The man loosens the collar of his tan button up shirt, stopping to look at the one button

that falls free to clatter away in the pavement.

He sucks his teeth and looks at it a second longer, wondering if it's worth retrieving,

and decides it's not.

He turns to the girl who is wearing a white jumper and running baskets of plantains from

a truck to the space behind her father's stall.

The falling rain seems almost suspended in the air as the sun glitters through it, casting

a rainbow that faintly shines into place over the buildings far beyond the girl.

There's a spot waiting for her there, oddly enough, out on the edge of town.

A place she'll be seeing, very soon.

And for now he watches and waits, enjoying the salty pork sandwich he bought from the

other market downtown.

There is a fat, sweet little thing down there he thinks might make a good playmate for this

one.

When he's done with her, when this market will no longer have him, then it'll be on to

that next thing.

Senua?

...