Behind the Scenes of a Feud

[Joey Delgado]

Carlos sat on the edge of the bed, last night's sweat and sex rose from the sheets like morning mist, his wife Ava still asleep beside him, a slumbering queen with parted crimson lips and a dishevelled crown of raven hair.

 

The tension that consumed him last night, temporarily soothed by his wife's embrace, was back, clog dancing on his optic nerve, tap dancing up and down his spine, vice-gripping his hunched shoulders.

 

Days before, he had seen his brother fall, his body crumple to the street, his head scatter across the ground, red starburst smears on the gray; his older brother, bigger than life, felled by a black market spray of lead.

 

But the anger he should be feeling, the rage, had disappeared into something weak, into passivity, a sorrow that swallowed thoughts of vengeance back into their hateful black wellspring, and now all he wanted was to take his own son into the streets and kick around a football, carry on a tradition not bathed in their family's blood for a change.

 

Ava's legs curled around his waist, her long, tan arms wrapped around his naked chest, limbs like seductive vines dusting him with intoxicating perfume, violet pheramones moving from her soft pores through his rough ones.

 

"Think of how proud a son is of a father who protects his family at all cost," she whispered, and like a sailor following a siren's song, Carlos walked to the closet and pulled out his own father's gun, not noticing the white football falling from it's perch, bouncing on the ground, rolling under the bed to its final resting place in the dark.

 

  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-brazil-feud-201...

[Mike Handley]

What a great backstory to a news story! Oh, and what Angela said ...

[Angela]

Powerful images, and strong message.  Seemed like more than six sentences - you packed a big story into a small space.  Good work.