Flesh

2016, 19 minutes

A Lawyer pays for his sins with a pound of flesh

At an out-of-the-way diner, a young lawyer sits alone at a booth in the back, a stack of files to his right, his laptop open, Bluetooth on. He talks while sipping his coffee busy juggling calls with his wife, nanny, and mistress, all the while flirting with the waitress. His name is Ed. His life is easy. On the outside he is all the right things, perfect suit, hair, house, car, family. On the inside, he is empty, lost. He’s moving up at work, making sketchy but not unethical deals with cases to make his record look better and dispose of his backlogs faster. His life is good, and it is only getting better. That is, until… A stranger sits down across from him at his booth and smiles. The stranger is an older man, 50s, bearded and scruffy, salt and pepper gray. Yet, he is still a strong man, muscled, tall, and broad shouldered. He is smiling at Ed like he is just where he is supposed to be and did not just plop down into a booth with a total stranger. His name is SAM. Ed’s past of playing things fast and lose is about to catch up with him. See, Ed forgot that those files he tosses around and makes convenient deals over everyday, hold the lives of real flesh and blood people, lives as precious and meaningful as his own. Sam is here to remind him. (Sam is our Everyman. Once a good man, a hard-working regular Joe whom the system failed and failed and failed again, horribly, like it does to so many every day. And who, like so many, tried everything and found he had no recourse… well, nothing he could afford. The system, it seems, was not built for the honest man in the middle.) Thus, Sam sits there and smiles, various deadly implements on his person, a man with nothing left to lose, and only one thing to gain- justice. He has come here tonight for his pound of flesh, and he is not leaving without it. And that is just the beginning…

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