Methodically he dipped his hands into the icy blackness of the lake. Her face beneath the surface, lovely eyes now blank, lovely mouth no longer able to kiss that other, stretched in a forever-scream.

Down went his hands as he washed the blood away, playing Pilate for an uninterested moon.

Becky Marietta’s short essays and works of fiction have appeared in such publications as The Christian Science Monitor, Among Worlds, Over the Back Fence, and Weber: The Contemporary West. Becky holds an MA from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and is an adjunct instructor of English at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas.