Eight pages. Roughly. Eight pages! It's a mini masterpiece. The whole atmosphere built in this is superb. It's light and airy, uplifting and cheerful, and you don't even really pay attention to the bad news that's on the radio when the young man, so in love, passes the flower stand.
Is there a hammer killer? I didn't even realise. I was that oblivious that until it was mentioned as a question, I had to go back and check. That one little mention, on the radio, that the young man in love hears, just before smiling and buying flowers.
So wonderfully oblivious.
It's funny what passes us by when we aren't paying attention. When we're distracted by the seemingly sublime, by the innocence we think we see, by emotions, and feelings as fleeting as a beautiful spring, until the blood seeps out of the dark alleys onto our streets and we hear the echoes of screams.
What an absolutely superb story.
Where the evil is hidden in plain sight, horror disguised as love - or worse, obsession over an imagined love? A previous love? A first kill? A first step towards insanity? Poor Norma, whoever she was, whoever she will be.
I didn't see it coming. Not at all
4.5 of 5