Connor Coyne

The sun rose. It slanted against the walls at an almost horizontal angle. The murderer sat up in bed. It had happened the night before. He still couldn’t believe he had gone through with it. He got up, shaved, brushed his teeth, ate breakfast. Nervous about trace evidence he might have left behind, he went back over each moment. He had put the sleeping pills in the victim’s food months earlier. He had air tight alibis for weeks and weeks. It was a meticulous effort. The elderly victim had been in poor health. There were any number of likely causes of death, and the murderer doubted the next of kin would request an autopsy. The murderer stood to gain nothing obvious by the death; it had been a simple act of revenge in return for a slight many decades earlier. The murder had shared his feelings with nobody, and so he didn’t expect to be suspected. Still, he felt a nagging uncertainty.

He went outside, got in his car, and started the daily trip downtown. The traffic tighted around him; rush hour is hell. The sun went behind a cloud, and he started to feel the eyes watching him. The man in the pickup behind him. The woman walking her dog. The children in the playground. The murderer looked down the long freeway, and knew that in every car and on every sidewalk, everyone was thinking of him at that very moment. Condemning him and the crime he had committed.

First, I’m pleased to announce a new contributor to the Hungry Rats project. Nick Carone, a screenwriter from Chicago, is putting together an original work of fiction set in Flint during the Ratman murders. I have put his photo and a short bio up on the website under “contributors.” While a number of artists, musicians, and designers have added their stamp to the project, Nick is the first person to do so through prose writing.

The mainstream press has neglected a whole area of work rich in potential. Dismissively branded as “fan fiction” or “derivative work,” Hungry Rats seeks to promote these inspired and often startlingly original works on equal footing with the novel itself. After all; every fiction establishs a universe that is wholly unique and self-contained. Why not explore it from the angles of film and music, photography and painting, poetry and prose, for as long as it is interesting?

If you are interested in collaborating on Hungry Rats (and don’t limit yourself; I’m interested in everything above, and everything else from biology to theater to sociology to journalism), please drop me a line and let me know what you’re thinking!