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(where Walter Bing's body got tossed ...)
Walter Bing was almost a whole day dead. He faced the sun rising from the eastern Pacific, caught like a kite in mid-flight. He was crumpled in a flame tree, held aloft by broad branches, his left arm dangling and swinging in the constant gusts of wind channeled along the pali walls.
The flame tree basked while Bing naturally fermented in the tropical heat and humidity. The flame tree was full grown and flamboyantly in bloom. His work pants were the color of the branches, and his aloha shirt was the same scarlet and white as the blossoms that surrounded him.
His head was mashed against an errant off-shoot, a thumb-sized sucker that had impaled his cheek. Had he been alive when he crash-landed here, his neck would have twisted and snapped. But he was already dead meat cooling.
When he hit the flame tree, it had actually groaned from the impact. Not that he weighed that much--a middle-aged bantam-weight of a man--but he had hit at terminal velocity. The flame tree did lose some branches, but it was hardy and took the stress well. After all, not many trees could live halfway up the side of a thousand foot cliff on the lee side of the volcanic mountain range.
A honeybee walked his face, prowled his nostril, invaded his mouth, and investigated the sticky sweetness of his blood, the corruption of his body. Soon it was blown away by the gusty winds. New bees came and went.
Now and then the wind stiffened, the tree shook and swayed, Bing rocked in his cradle, old leaves and old blossoms blew off. But Bing's purchase was never threatened; he was wedged tightly. Small change slipped from Bing's pockets, and tumbled to the footpath three dozen feet below.
Bing, if alive, would have looked out on Kaneohe Bay in leeward Oahu. He'd have seen the bedroom community of Kailua. It was a lovely town of manicured lawns, suburban bungalows, choice quarter-acre lots, station wagons, and a very good high school football team. Bing knew the streets of Kailua well, better than most residents, yet he never lived there. He would've if he could've, but he never got the chance. But that's the trouble with murder; we die before our time.
Now he awaited his funeral and burial at the Chinese cemetery in Manoa.
A mynah bird landed near Bing, warbled to the world that this was the frontier of his territory, then caught the scent of dead man, and flew off in a hurry to another border post.
From the novel MURDER IN WAIKIKI, available at the Kindle Store. Less expensive writings are also available.
Enjoy good writing tonight in the privacy of your home.
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Best wishes,
Fred Zackel
(Is the link is working yet? Sigh.)
P.S. Also available through smashwords.