“Luck & Retribution” by Carl Robinette is a flash fiction story, originally published at MysteryTribune.com

A man is marked for assassination but his advanced-stage cancer will kill him within days. The hitman hired to take out the dying man will have to decide whether to see his job through or let nature take its course.

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There’s a joke about how the last thing through a bug’s mind when it hits your windshield is its own ass. Or maybe you’re supposed to say “bee” and “stinger.” In any case, those bugs on your windshield are the lucky ones.

I mean, Yea. Anyway.

I rode the elevator up to the 29th floor. A tin-can voice said something in Swedish and the doors slid open onto the penthouse suite. I made my way down a plush carpeted hallway with framed paintings of sailboats and soldiers lining the walls.

I came to a bedroom.

The guy was lying there watching TV, half-awake in a medical bed like a bag of bones. A young man but sick, hollowed out. And you’ve got to wonder why the last things to die on a body are usually the parts that feel.

Life is painful. Not much of an answer but there you go.

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Praise for “Luck & Retribution”

“Nicely done.” — Bill Baber