Not sure the name. The shade Jean-Michel painted with. Flick through glossy pages, point to a reprint. ‘Untitled, 1982’. The clerk nods, turns away. Comes back with a small sample.
Later, then, after the stains, and second coat, had dried…
The high-res catalogue made the blue bolder than it was.
Nikita Linivenko is his own harshest critic. He found this story stale, vapid, and a little less than inconsequential. But at least he arranged his words fashionably.
Applause, only slightly forced, thunders up to the balcony. El Caudillo waves at beaming faces, tropical-coloured flags raised high. Aside, he quips, “A good leader is bullet-proof; a great leader is ballot-proof.” Snorts and smirks from his junta.
Then: a crack from the tree-line.
…He was but a great leader.
Nikita Linivenko hopes this story didn’t come out too badly.
Start with truth and wait for fiction to reveal itself. Punch it up. Tenderize the truth. Add a dash of Hunter Thompson’s brains. Scraped off the wall. Drizzle with some mescaline. Garnish with spent casings and discarded drafts. What you get is mostly pulp, spiked and unsweetened. Distill with caution.
Nikita Linivenko hates writing bios in the third person.
Pulling my hair out, trying to get every sentence right. Hemingway says there’s nothing to it; that all you have to do is sit and bleed. I hemorrhage, knowing time can’t salvage a fluff-piece.
The Marquee de Sade wrote his magnum opus on toilet paper. Mine’s writing on the wall.
Nikita Linivenko failed English his junior year of High School (due to lack of trying).
Great-gramps was a knight of sorts. I used to fetch his lighter fluid while he told me stories about Wizards and Cyclopses.
When he was still fit, he hiked to Ruby Ridge.
By the time he dropped dead, I didn’t need to ask why Robert Shelton was at his funeral.
Nikita Linivenko has been published once on 101words.org and regularly on blog.reedsy.com.