MORTAR FLOWERS

摘要

Sometimes in the morning, a single gull would cry, after the mortar shells had rained all night and spilt blood trickled down the alley walls into the sunbaked asphalt. The Cement Florist boiled jars of coloured resin in the crumbling kitchen of his third- floor apartment, which overlooked the warships in the harbour. He bit a cigar between his teeth as he spooned hot resin out of its jar and let it fall back, occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the neatly made bed with its blue-and-pink-striped quilt. He had awoken in the middle of the night to gunshots in the cul-de-sac. Another execution. It was at times like these, when he lay alone in the dark and the screams ate into his mind, that he missed her most. Drawing his brown leather jacket around his shoulders, he set one of his jars under his arm and locked the door.