5

Death deals the cards. They whisper across the shaky table.

Hernandez sticks a cigar in his mouth. Dumbo tucks his wife’s letter in his helmet. Loki spits and curses. Roy sips his coffee. We pull the cards toward us and laugh.

I don’t remember what my wife looked like, but I recognize Death. She calls for our bets, wearing a red dress, her beautiful face carved out of stone. My friends laugh and lie, already deep in the game.

I remember what my little girl looks like. I remember the smell of her head. The scar on her left knee. Her lisp. Peanut butter and banana. I don’t think she remembers me.

Death rattles bone dice in her mouth, clicking them against her teeth. She spits them on the table and they roll.

We bet it all, throw everything on the line because the air is filled with bullets and grenades. We won’t hear the one that gets us, but it’s coming.

She tells us to show our hands.

We have never been so alive.