Judgment
He died the day he was born.
Or—rather, the day he wanted to be reborn. In the cusp of time where people start swaying on their seat, eyes glazed over in muted light and fumbling hands, when there’s disregard to how many tequila shots they’ve thrown back and mouths are filled with the sour tang of vomit, he decided that enough was enough. With whiskey thick on his teeth and a viscous accent only drunk men have, he decided that alcohol doesn’t mix well with his blood. That erasing his memory every night was fun at first, but now his early adult life was only present in frames of waking up on the bathroom floor with a hand curled around a beer bottle. He paid all six months’ worth of a tab and stumbled out the door. Ice crunched beneath his boots and the streetlamps flickered seared honey, a crisp February night. A moonless night, cold and biting like a fresh glass of—no. He is definitely not thinking about entering the bar again. A heavy sigh. He waited by the stoplight, red hand haunting in the mist. There were few cars driving at this hour; two yellow eyes sliding against the icy road like a prowling coyote. He tested the word crisp in his mouth, the way the tongue rolled the word forward with hot air behind his teeth. He leaned heavily against the pole, face flushed and warm despite the weather. And because there were few cars and the stoplight made him wait for more than seven minutes, he decided to cross the street. It was a crisp February night. There was no sound except for crunching ice and skidding wheels, yellow eyes locked on its dinner, metal teeth gnawing at his bones.