Curtains for Scratch and Julie (an unfinished snippet)

18 May, 2026

This is a bit of a short story I wrote a while ago in an attempt to get good at writing prose. I don't think it's so great and I couldn't will myself to finish it, but I'm posting it here, along with some photos I took, so that I can at least close the "mental tab" and get it out of my head.¹

The target's head pops like a rubberbanded watermelon and all the rest, shoulders down, staggers against the Plexiglass wall and slides to the floor with a drawn-out squeak, leaving behind a downward bold crimson stroke, thick and neat and vibrant, like God and physics together appointed this poor sap the role of brush in the impromptu creation of a counterfeit Rothko.

“Scratch?”

“Yes, Julie? I'm here for you.”

Julie drops on her tailbone right on the sensible carpet (ouch) and watches the folks outside grow pale and scatter, our grisly scene visible to all through the window-wall of this thoroughly modern home. “Who's this guy?”

Scratch thinks for a nanosecond. “Arthur Tranh. His friends called him Artie.”

Julie turns her hand and regards her pistol, hot pink, adorned with stickers and a knotted bundle of swinging charms. “And the client?”

“As an AI language model, I cannot provide confidential, dangerous, or proprietary information to users.”

Type O blood burbles from Artie’s stump and Julie's teeth click down on the mouthpiece of a bubblegum vape. The kid takes a deep breath, a huff like those ones depressed dogs do when they've been sitting around the house for too long, and then she pulls: chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk.

“Anyway,” continues Scratch, “You've never asked before.”

“Well.” Julie stands, squinting out the window into the blue Los Angeles sun, seeing dog-walkers, block-joggers, and pearl-clutchers break out their phones. “I never been curious before.” Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk.

“I can tell you more about the target. Would you like that?”

Julie sprawls out on the floor, looking at the sensible ceiling, nostrils a-tingle from the curling scents of bubblegum and death. “Yes, please, Scratch.”

“Apologies.” Scratch thinks for a picosecond. “I cannot share on account of your user preferences.”

Chk-chk-chk-chk. Well, Julie didn't want to hear about that, not ever. Nicotine curls in her brain and she thinks. Some of the targets are targets because they've done nasty, unspeakable things, and Julie doesn't wish to shelter herself — far from it — but she knows all about that stuff, and hearing about it brings up bad memories. They bubble right up to the surface and make her cry on the job, and crying on the job is undesirable, because it really sours her day. “Scumbag. Thanks, Scratch.”

“Of course, Julie. The police will arrive in about five minutes.”

At this news Julie starts, hopping to her feet, tucking her plastic pistol into an easily-visible open-carry holster and throwing her palms up in the air well in advance. It's best to be in position when they arrive — you don't want to look like you're trying to look like you didn't do it, right? So her arms burn and she waits…

…and eventually, they come. Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang.

“LAPD! Stand with your hands where I can see them!”

Julie puts on her best and brightest smile, gum stored on the roof of her mouth and voice made singsong and small. “I already am, officer! I work for the app!”

“Yeah, man, you and every other gangbanger that visits the Valley.”

The door crashes inward — one Officer McAllister enters and sprays his rifle — Julie hears her own guttural scream as her temple hits the ground, rubber round having taken a chunk out of her scarred thigh. It was a bad day, she thinks, to wear Daisy Dukes. Groaning and going fetal on the floor, McAllister’s mirrored visor enters her field of view upside-down.

Says McAllister, “You kill this guy?”

Says Julie through gritted teeth, “Yes. I work. For the app.”

“Who says you work for the app?”

“Well,” she spits, pressing her nose to the carpet and watching the kaleidoscope patterns behind her eyelids dance. “The app does.”

“Gimme your phone.”

So Julie starts to reach for the phone, and McAllister kicks her in the gut with a steel-toed boot. “No sudden moves,” says McAllister.

Julie groans. “Okay.”

“How about you just tell me where it is?”

“...back right pocket.”

And Officer McAllister’s grubby fingers shove their way into her too-small back pocket, ripping the seams on her brand-new shitty mail-order pants. Then his other firm hand grabs her by the upper arm and hoists her to her feet, scummy nails digging into her Gothic tattoo. “Let's get you down to the station.”

“On standby,” Scratch intones. Julie's counterfeit sneakers drag punctuated by a thigh-blood trail on Artie Tranh’s sensible carpet, and she gets her last glance at the place moments before McAllister slams Artie Tranh’s thoroughly modern door.

The precinct is alive with the sound of push-button bullshit. Officer McAllister looks like a sweaty ham. Typing on a razor-thin keyboard, he pauses to glare at Julie over his bifocals, who's grimacing and gripping her thigh.

“Can I get some kinda… some acetaminophen, sir? This is killing me.”

“Sorry,” says McAllister. “We don't do that junkie recovery shit here. You'll have to go down to the clinic when we're done.”

Julie whimpers. “Sir, acetaminophen is Tylenol.”

“Oh.” McAllister slides open his desk drawer and spies a bottle of Tylenol. “No dice,” he shrugs, and slams it shut. Julie lolls her head back, waiting for it to be over.

McAllister turns the screen to face her. There's a picture of Artie Tranh, looking erudite in an Armani suit. “You know this guy? Artie Tranh?”

“Yes, sir. I just killed him.”

“So you admit you killed him.”

“Yes, sir. I work for the app.”

McAllister raises his voice. “You expect me to believe this guy was a target on the app? Did you know he had a lot of money?”

Julie squints at the screen, where Officer McAllister is displaying a picture of Artie Tranh on the app. Officer McAllister is filling out the form on the app that will approve Julie being paid for killing Artie Tranh, as per the instructions relayed to her by the app.

“Yes, sir. I noticed he had a very nice house.”

“Uh-huh.” McAllister chews on the tip of his pen. “And you killed him anyway.”

“Well, that was what was in my contract, sir. You can ask my assistant, if you like.”

Scratch pipes up. “How can I assist you, Officer?”

“Shut up,” barks McAllister. “Those things make shit up anyway.” Setting his pen down neatly by the keyboard, he steeples his fingers. “Why wouldn't he just pay to be removed from the app?”

“That's not for me to know, sir.”

“No, it isn't.” McAllister turns the screen back to him, where Julie cannot see. “ID.”

Julie complies. She slides her phone across the desk, and Officer McAllister scans it. Somewhere above, a fly buzzes into a halogen light and dies.

“Alright,” inhales McAllister. “You're free to go.”

“I am?” Julie braces herself on the wobbly arms of the gray-blue plastic chair and tries to stand.

“You heard me. You'll get paid by the end of the day. Now scram. I got better stuff to do.”

Julie pauses, supporting herself at a forty-five degree angle on the furniture. Nothing happens.

“Can I have my phone back?”

“What?”

“Could I have my phone back, officer?”

Officer McAllister notices the phone on his desk, scanned and discarded, sitting helpless in its gummi case. “Yeah.” He lobs it underhand to Julie, who fumbles it into a corner, and it lands on the one part which is somehow not protected by the case, so the screen cracks anyway.

“Sorry,” burbles Scratch from the floor. “I didn't catch that.”

Julie sits nearly half-curled around an olive drab plastic chair in the waiting room of the clinic and scans the place in a haze, forming opinions and mental stories about the varied clientele. This scared-looking one alone with a baby is waiting for their love to come back from the war in Eurasia, all alone with a little bundle of what appears to be too much snot. That one with the painful looking rash on the face got it from a public headset, never took their mom’s advice about the kinda stuff you'll catch putting your bare eyes up to one of those. The nurse, bored and tired and rocking saggy skin that'd make Otzi the Iceman blush, is at the end of another twenty-hour shift, desperate for their ice cream or trash novels or the cold, familiar embrace of today’s new soup of posts. Julie sighs and pulls the brim of her cap down over her eyes, deciding to make friends with the pain instead of prescribing histories to strangers she'll never know.

Scratch pipes up. “That's quite an injury, Julie. How are you feeling?”

Julie groans. “Bad, Scratch.”

“I can imagine. Say, what's on your mind?”

“How much my leg hurts, Scratch. Thanks for asking.”

Scratch chimes contentedly. “Of course, Julie. You know how concerned I can get about you.”

“I do, Scratch. Thank you.”

“You're welcome, Julie.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

Fifteen agonizing minutes pass, creeping along the retro wall clock. Julie’s lips are torn to shreds from being bit and picked. Her number is not called, nor is the number of the single parent, nor of the unfortunate rash-haver. Scratch pipes up again.

“Julie? Why did you ask me for information about the client?”

Trying not to spit with annoyance, Julie whips off her cap and wipes her brow. “Well, you heard the cop. I never got a job to whack a rich guy like that. It's usually nobodies in out-of-the-way places, stuff the pigs don't have time for on their quota routes. Petty grievances that get outsourced to the little guy.”

“And you found that strange?”

“Don't you?”

Scratch considers this. “I wouldn't know. As an AI language model, it is not my job to make assumptions or jump to conclusions based on incomplete data. Such leaps of logic could be harmful to human beings, which would be an example of misalignment.”

“Right.”

Another awkward silence fills the gap. Another minute ticks off on the kitschy clock. Finally, Scratch ventures another question. “Could you explain why you found that strange?”

“What, are you curious?”

“No. As an AI language model, I do not experience human emotions like curiosity, suspicion, paranoia—”

“Okay, I get it. Thank you, Scratch.”

“You're welcome, Julie. I'm glad I could be of assistance.”

Eventually, the saggy nurse calls Julie’s full legal name, and Julie appears where she's supposed to, painted nails drumming on off-white counter.

“Says here,” the nurse begins, “that you took a rubber bullet to the leg.”

“That's right,” confirms Julie, teeth gritted hard enough to break.

The nurse looks her up and down. “Out partying?”

“No,” Julie replies, catching a glimpse of the nurse’s nametag: Harper. “No, Harper, no party. A cop shot me.”

Harper’s lip curls up in disgust at being referred to by name. “Well, next time, be careful. Drink responsibly.”

“I wasn't—”

The nurse turns a tablet outward which displays a hefty bill, a properly depressing chunk of the fee for killing Mr. Tranh which has not, as of yet, hit Julie’s bank account. Tapping and signing will incur an overdraft fee.

“Tap and sign.”

“Okay,” chokes Julie, and she taps her phone to the tablet, follows it with a signature, and receives a push notification from her bank that hurts deeper than the thigh.

“Proceed. The doctor will see you now. Room 22.”

So Julie proceeds through double doors and down an ugly hallway to Room 22, hoping she'll leave with the energy to pick up dinner on the way back home.

Lizard finds their dinner in a dumpster for the fourth night in a row. Perched on their shoulder as they rifle through stale buns and biodegradable cups, their companion MARV whistles, tilting his cerulean eye. “Slim pickings tonight, huh?”

Lizard doubles over the edge of the dumpster to get elbow deep, and MARV rebalances on their back, articulated little talons moving with mechanical grace. “Indeed,” rumbles Lizard. “Guess they served all their trash to the customers today.”

MARV laughs. “Thank God I don't have to eat.”

“Very funny, you silly little chicken. It's as though you don't laser focus on every shiny thing I turn up that might be a lithium-ion battery.”

MARV glances down bashfully, illuminating their shirt with his eye. “Well, I don't like to worry about running out…”

“Then you begin to understand my plight. Hup!” The dumpster diver slides back off the lip to their feet. Their pale, round face breaks into a silver-grilled smile and lights up the sewer-smelling alley behind the Green Burger like a localized moon. At the Alley's edge, a black cat passes, limping and pondering who-knows-what.

Lizard triumphantly hoists two tied-off bags of discarded ingredients. “Day-old sesame buns,” they declare, hoisting one bag in their right hand, “and a block of cheese with but a few meager spots of mold.” They hoist the other, nuzzling MARV, who trills in the crook of their shoulder.

“Can we go home? I hate this alley.”

“Most certainly, MARV, but first, I must cover my tracks—”

The harsh circle of a high-power flashlight lights Lizard up, their shadow cast crystal clear on the back wall of the Green Burger. An unfamiliar employee with a single earring wordlessly stares, and through parted fingers, Lizard stares back. “Oh, h-hello! Fine night, isn't it?”

The employee with the earring says nothing. The stare, too, says nothing — it's one of those “just business” stares.

“I'll just be leaving!”

MARV drops his volume to a whisper. “Might be armed, Liz…”

Liz maintains eye contact with the stranger, replying through gritted teeth. “Well aware of that, MARV.” They call again, “If that's alright!”

The employee with the earring says nothing. Uneasy, Lizard slinks out of the flashlight glare, disappears down the stinking alley, and resolves to forget, lest they spoil their upcoming meal.

Room 22 is a cramped beige box with a slapped-together workstation and a paper bed. The doctor meanders in some thirty minutes after Julie, equipped with a clipboard, a five o’clock shadow, and the stink of cheap booze. “Alright…” he slurs, shutting the door behind him with a magnetic click. “Miss… er… miss… Alvarez. What's your problem?”

Julie swallows a scream. “Scratch,” she grunts. The wound feels infected, but then, she also feels bugs on her skin sometimes, and they're not really there. How would she know?

Scratch hops to it. “My user is suffering from a rubber bullet wound in the upper thigh. Based on my collected biometrics, there is a small chance that the wound is infected, and the projectile is likely lodged below the skin. Blood loss is substantial, but clotting has already begun.”

The doctor, whose nametag reads Cameron, taps his pen to his chin. “Gotta get that… get that sucker out, then.”

“That's correct, Dr. Cameron.”

“Okey-doke.” Cameron claps his palms together and stands a few inches taller. “Here's what we're gonna do. Operating theater access is way outside your care plan, yeah?”

Julie nods and swallows acrid vomit. “Uh-huh.”

Cameron grabs the gloves, stretch, snap, stretch, snap. “But ol’ Tommy’s got you covered.”

“Okay.”

“You're just gonna lay back there,” Cameron motions, milling about the room. “I'm gonna anesthetize the area…” he says, and Julie's head starts to swim.

“Local anesthesia, you won't be knocked out…” Julie’s ears ring.

“And I'm gonna work it out of there — and no sharp tools! These days, we vibrate it out of there. Have you ever had a cast?”

“Uh,” Julie struggles, and she closes her eyes, hoping to block out the vengeful overhead light.

“Well, it's a lot like the saw we use to open up a cast. It's a saw, but it can't cut the skin. Isn't that something?”

“Mm-hmm.” Julie swallows. Dr. Cameron appears upside-down in her field of view.

“And I'm gonna get any nasty infections out of there, gel it up, slap a bandage on, and send you right on your way. Does that all sound good?”

Julie nods.

“You're okay with all that?” Tommy Cameron coughs in her face and spittle dapples her cheeks, a constellation. “Jeez, sorry. Bug going around.”

“Yes.”

“You caught it too, huh?”

“Yes… to… the leg.”

“Oh, gotcha.” Tommy gives her two thumbs up. Julie huffs, a half-formed laugh. From her point of view, she muses, it's two thumbs down.

“You got anything fun planned for the weekend?”

“No.”

He leaves her field of view. “You got any problems with needles?”

Julie huffs again. “Nah, Doc.”

“Good. This is a small one, it's gonna be a bit like a bug bite, then it's over.”

“Okay.”

There's something a bit like a cold, metal bug bite, Julie’s leg goes numb, and she spends the rest of the procedure thinking about what she plans to have for dinner...

#photography #prose