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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “At the Zoo” Down in the Dirt v210 (8/23)  Order the paperback book: 
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Cause and Effect: A Diptych
Luke Dylan Ramsey
Honolulu, December 7th, 1941
A stray dog the café’s Japanese owner, Hiro, habitually feeds skulks in and out the front door, nudging it open and kicking it closed with athletic ease. There’s no wind yearning round and round today. Humidity hangs over the locale, bringing everything to a soak. The dog seems dazed; so does everybody else.
Slow motion. Fresh craters mere yards away. Sky hazy, obscured. Fires burn nearby.
Hiro never turned on the radio. Not on this day. Wouldn’t have been good news. Not for him, or his business.
The vibes are all off here. Silence reigns sovereign. Only a few customers. Very few. Much less than normal.
Even the Chinese diners and Korean coffee drinkers read the morning newspaper and glare at Hiro, the waitstaff, and cook. Noisy headlines. War is come. Life is nowhere near normal. A couple of regulars died yesterday.
Sarajevo, June 28th, 1914
The head of the Archduke’s procession is stuck out front the café where Princip eats and drinks. Princip is strangely content, given the severity of his mission. A pack of strays laze in the street, and the parade’s leader is loathe to run them over. Bad publicity for an already controversial leader. Can’t do that.
The conspirator hasn’t yet noticed his luck.
A convivial atmosphere. No portents of doom. Nobody looks at him. Princip doesn’t look at anyone. He munches on a sandwich and sips on a coffee.
Smoke in the air. Princip coughs, lights up a cigarette, finishes his meal.
He doesn’t feel like paying. Not today. He inspects the bartender and barmaids. They are occupied with the hullaballoo outside and with rowdy customers. His scheme to escape forms into solidity quickly. He knows what he must do.
Honolulu
A crowd forms outside Hiro’s café. The windows keep most of their hooting and hollering out... for now. They hold tools, small arms. And they shout racist slogans and xenophobic propaganda. There are uniformed soldiers, military police, airmen, civilian cops, and sailors among them. Their anger is a bonfire soon to roar.
As the mass grows, Hiro’s customers slip out one by one, most sans paying, all without tipping. Nobody tries to stop them. What’s the point? Hiro and his staff keep their heads down instead, incapable of meeting even each other’s eyes. There doesn’t seem to be much point to communicating.
Not now. Maybe never again.
Yesterday was hell, the world changed irrevocably, but today might be even worse, at least for Hiro, and those like him.
Sarajevo
Princip steps out of the café, blinking for the sun’s brightness. His eyes almost close. The Archduke’s yawped commands reach the front of the procession. They must move. And now. So the parade’s leader fires a Luger. Princip quakes bodily as the strays disperse into the crowd.
Fingering his own firearm, Princip slinks to the edge of the street, edging out women and children for a better view of the object of his mission. He eyes the nearby policemen, who pay him no mind. He’s a man lost to the masses, or hoping to appear so.
The parade crawls forward. Princip shuffles in place. Sweat starts to mar his brow. They’ve planned and planned for this onrushing moment. His life’s culmination. His footnote in history.
Honolulu
Hiro sends his staff out the back and into an alleyway. “Wait there, or just head home,” he says. “This won’t last long.”
Once his staff is safe, or seemingly so, Hiro shuffles to the bathroom to splash icy cold water on his face. He barely slept at all. Bloodshot eyes. Heart hammering away. Blood pulsating in his veins and capillaries. He has never felt less alive.
Yet his mind is noisy nonetheless. Run, run, running into his dark future.
Inspecting himself in the mirror, squinting and blinking at his reflection, he steels himself for what he knows is to come.
A brick shatters a window, confirming his worst fears. The dog bolts out the resultant void. Hiro steps out of the bathroom to savor his already marred café one final time.
Sarajevo
The Archduke and his wife’s car approaches the conspirator’s position. Creeping forward and forward; waving and kissing the air without passion. Pomp and circumstance and bourgeois elegance. Crowd festive and compliant.
For now.
Princip takes out his pistol and sticks it under his coat. A noticeable bulge, but oh well, he doesn’t care. His time is soon to come, yet he is quite calm. Kind of zoned in. Oddly blank.
He knows his fate already. Perhaps he always did.
The metal of the gun warm against his hand. He can feel his heart beating in a rhythmic pattern. Wind surges through the city, cooling him but not dousing the crowd’s excitement.
His thoughts are staccato and disjointed. His trigger finger itches.
Honolulu
Hiro exits his café, crossing a sidewalk smothered in shattered glass, enters the street.
The crowd gives way a bit, soon creating a noose surrounding him. His life had been fairly repetitive until now. He doesn’t know how to handle this. Their vitriol is set to a roil by his silent appearance in their midst. They had expected a chase, or more protest. Water still glistens on Hiro’s face, intermixing with fresh sweat.
A smack shakes him to his knees. The mass converges on him. Hiro disappears into their fervid anger, drowning in waves of hate.
Sarajevo and Honolulu
Shots ring out. Blood now stains the street, pooling in viscous puddles, shimmering in the purifying sunlight. The strays are long gone, though their barks can still be heard. The crowds froth, some striving to disperse, others attempting a mosh pit. Shouts, shout, shouting; shoves, shove, shoving.
Chaos has become God. Everything is entropy.
And consequences for all; and consequences for one.
