Marie and the Sailor – Kevin Johnson Murillo
April 20, 2026
The mariner, dressed in brown, leaned against the girl’s desk, one knee bent jutting-out, foot/boot leaning on the handle of a drawer. The room was dark: only as much light as could be let through the beige skin of the drapes illumined their figures, though midday. She (Marie) was sitting on a chair backwards, resting head on arms on backend. Him: Stern gaze going nowhere.
She said, “Where are you?”
He: …..
She said, “You’re odd.”
Him: ……
She said, “When are you going?”
This: …….
The day went on like this for apparently long unmeasured time, unless perceiving and acknowledging difference can be considered a form of measurement, because Marie did notice that the beige skin of the drapes was darker when she finally got tired of this cat and mouse game […] going nowhere and decided to force the sailor out of her apartment.
She said, “Hon, you’re beautiful, but you’re just a little —maybe a lot— boring, and I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
The sailor didn’t budge.
She said, “Please go.”
This: ……..
So she got up and kicked him on the side of the leg connected to the ground. This made him react, turn his head leftward, awfully slowly, like a malfunctioning toy train. Eyes were lifeless.
She slapped and kissed him sideways. He didn’t move but merely let her do it, then turned torso and put his hands on her waste, like a robot. The way the hands felt on the sides of her chest frightened her and she recoiled. Again, she looked at him and this time knew there was nothing there (she was flirting with a shell).
He stepped toward her, and she drew back —one step, two steps, and so on— until her back was against the wall. She wasn’t afraid, reacted swiftly, and lurched leftward under his arm and to the door.
The corridor outside was brighter: yellow electric light the 30 feet of its length. She ran rightward, 15 meters to the stairs that sunk immeasurably to the ground.
She couldn’t tell if he was following her, stopped on the 3rd floor, looked out the window at the pier: idyllic sailboats and a wash of sun; listened but heard nothing. She waited to see if she could hear him coming down after her, but there was no sign and she remembered that he was alone in her apartment.
“There’s a stranger in my home,” she told the attendant on the bottom floor.
He called security, and security called the police. The situation escalated quickly so that the cops were soon firing into the apartment with intent to kill the sailor. He shot back. (Actually, he was the first to fire, having shot a security guard in the face with a small pocket pistol he kept hidden in his sleeve.) He had no other weapons and barricaded the entrance with the desk.
He shot back at them but had only four bullets. The police made quick work of him when they realized there were no more boom sounds emerging from the apartment.
“The coast is clear,” she was told by a young sheriff with a mustache.
She thanked him for getting rid of that abomination.
When she climbed back up the stairs she came across two police officers (in brown) emerging from the room with the body of the mariner: each of them held one ankle. It didn’t disturb her to see the bullet-riddled body dragged down the hall away from her living space. She wanted to thank him for reminding her not to waste her time.