THE LITTLE WAR

By now he had gotten used to the war. Every morning he could see the columns of the enemy forces marching single file out of their underground bunkers. They lived in dark tunnels underneath the kitchen sink. He would observe them silently, with deadly intent.

He would turn on the hot water and wait for it to reach full temperature and then he would commence the slaughter.

He would bring out his heavy artillery — the sink hose — take aim, and blast them.

“Okay, folks, it’s killing time” he would announce as he aimed the hose at a line of them and fired off a hot stream of water, blasting them over the edge into the gurgling death of the sink drain. Some would escape and try to climb up the steep porcelain walls but his eagle eye would notice them and he would again train the deluge on their tiny bodies, clinging helplessly to the smooth white surface.

He did the job quickly, sometimes reveling in his awesome powers of life and death over thesevlittle creatures. If one was too far away, he would not deign to chase it down, knowing that thevnext day and the next, the remorseless war would eventually claim it too.

But sometimes, a pang of conscience would undermine his efficiently organized killing fields.

For a month ago, he had lived in peace with another colony in a cheap Hollywood hotel. His struggle to find a producer for his screenplay was winding down into the realization that it was not going to be made anytime soon.