Challenge: Not what it looks like
Fandom: due South
Characters: Ray Vecchio
Title: What the head said
Summary: Ray sees behind the glamour of Vegas
Words: 235
Rating: T (implications of violence, murder.)

Summary: Vegas isn't everything it seems. Neither is Ray, anymore.



This isn’t what it looks like.

Paradise, it’s golden, and it shines;
like diamonds in the air glittering,
the chandeliers of ice spin out as stars
and swim through the shadows of the ceiling.

The table cloths are made of silk,
the food’s too beautiful to eat, and –

“Anyone we know?” says your dining companion
and laughs, tucking into the cotoletta.


This isn’t what it looks like.

Last night you dreamt the Strip,
just that, a strip through the desert -
a high street in an Old Western.
Sheets of plywood, painted at the front,
the face propped up
to look like buildings.
And the cameras rolled – lights – action.
The hookers in the upstairs windows
were standing on ladders
their sensible pants and shoes
hidden on the other side.
When they took five
they pulled on their jackets,
to cover up their nakedness,
clambered down the steps,
and walked around back stage
laughing and bumming cigarettes.

This isn’t what it looks like.

On Thursday night, you break a man’s fingers.

This isn’t what it looks like.

On Friday you’re carrying a bag.
It’s a bowling bag, you tell yourself.
You throw the bowling ball down the shaft
and the bats fly out.

All the long drop down
The head says:

“Thud.
            Thud.
Thud.”

This isn’t what it looks like.
It isn’t what it looks like.
This isn’t what it looks like, at all.