Fiction: 30-60 Seconds

By Tom Miller          

 

“I just,” Naomi said, choking back tears, “can’t get my TikTok off the ground!”

            “Maybe you need a different angle,” Harry said, clutching the selfie stick.

            “Different how? Everything I’ve tried doesn’t WORK!” Naomi screamed, tears rolling down her smooth face. She’d been trying to become an influencer for two years now, but internet fame eluded her. She religiously posted on socials with trending music, shopped at all the right places, had an impeccable wardrobe and hash tagged it all.

            But it yielded nothing.

            She shrieked again and clenched her fists. Harry stood there with the camera fixed on her–still rolling–and yawned.

            “Oh,” Naomi said, clocking his demeanor, “is this boring you? You wanna go read your little book?”

            “Actually yeah, I’d love to–Tom Robbins is great and TikTok sucks.”

            “You never support me.”

            “You’re not much to support.”

            His blunt tone made a vein protrude from her forehead. “Maybe you’d support a bullet in the head.”

            “You’d be doing me a favor, let’s wrap this up.”

            Naomi calmly walked away from Harry and into her parents’ house. It was a balmy spring day and the trees lining the suburban street were in full bloom. Harry closed his eyes and smiled as he smelled the azaleas.

            When he opened them, Naomi stood before the camera with a .38 Special aimed at his face. The sight of the gun made Harry jump and he nearly dropped the selfie stick. The camera was still rolling and Naomi looked positively cinematic, like some sort of blonde hitwoman in a Tarantino flick.

            “N-Naomi, can we–”

            Before he could finish, Naomi pulled the trigger and shot him in the head. Harry’s brain and bits of his skull splattered onto the yellow azaleas on the neighbor’s lawn and it looked like a Jackson Pollock drive-by. When his body thumped onto the driveway, Naomi’s blue eyes widened. Her hand trembling, she dropped the .38 and stared at his corpse. A pool of blood formed beneath his gaping head and the severity of what she’d done blasted through her like pure amphetamine.

            “Whoa,” someone said in the distance.

            Naomi looked up and saw a well-dressed gentleman next to the Japanese Maple on the edge of the property. He removed his Cartier sunglasses and approached Naomi, his eyes fixed on the hole in Harry’s head. “Whoa,” he said again, drawing it out this time, sipping an expensive latte. He crouched down and inspected the wound, enamored. Naomi’s shaking intensified and a lump formed in her throat. The gentleman stood up and looked at her, his mouth agape. Naomi opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

            “What happened?”

            “I, I,” Naomi stuttered, “he said that I…” she trailed off. She tried saying something else, but collapsed to the ground and wailed at the top of her lungs. She looked at Harry for a moment, then jerked her head away, unable to stomach what she’d done. The gentleman picked her up off the ground and held her by the shoulders.

            “Why are you crying?”

            Naomi, her cheeks stained with salty discharge, stared at him incredulously. “I…I’m gonna go to prison! I, I didn’t mean to, I–”

            “Hey, hey,” the gentleman said, shushing her, “no one’s going to prison. You’ll be fine. I saw the whole thing.”

            “You…you did?” Naomi asked, comforted by this man’s soothing words. “But, I sh…shot–”

            “Yeah and it was awesome. When I said, ‘what happened?’ I meant like…who thinks of that? Who goes there that quickly? I think you’ve got it.”

            “...what?”

            The gentleman tossed his latte onto the sidewalk, reached into his blazer, produced a business card and handed it to Naomi. She inspected the thick card.

IVAN BOZEMAN, TALENT/MANAGER

            “I…I don’t get it,” she said, sniffling.

            “I’m an agent!”

            “Yeah, but what does that have to do with…prison,” she said, her voice shaking again.

            “What about prison? What’re you talking about?”

            Naomi threw the card on the ground and got into his face. “I just killed my fucking boyfriend!”

            “I know! And it was great! I’m looking for a new angle and that was good,” Bozeman said, taking a step back. He looked Naomi up and down and nodded his head approvingly. “Nice bone structure, blue eyes…might need to buy you some tits, but that’s doable. What do you say, you in?”

            Naomi motioned down to Harry’s corpse, but Bozeman brushed her off.

            “Don’t sweat it.”

            “How can I not?!”

            “Oh, please–you’re white! And pretty! You’ll be fine,” he said, reaching into his pocket and checking his phone. “I’m about to get an Uber to the airport. You coming?”

            “To where?”

            “L.A.”

            “I can’t just up and go to L.A.”

            “Sure you can, I’ll set you up.”

            Naomi stared at him and regarded his expensive threads. “How do I know you’re not lying?”

            “C’mon. When has an agent ever lied?”

***

A month went by and Ivan turned Naomi into an overnight sensation. Her Tik-Tok and Instagram both blew up after she posted her snuff video and soon she was as famous as anyone in Hollywood–Chalamet, Leo, Zendaya, The Rock, even fucking Mr. Beast, man. Most of the A-listers welcomed Naomi, but some did not.

            The Kardashian clan was chief among those who did not.

            And no one in the clan despised Naomi more than Kylie.

            The acid lipped socialite loathed Naomi’s meteoric rise and found her unworthy. She vowed to take her down. The threat of violence frightened Naomi and she begged Ivan to get her a bodyguard, but he smelled a marketing opportunity.

Naomi Stone branded .38 Specials.

She didn’t need a bodyguard! She needed to leverage the very thing that had catapulted her to the top in the first place. Ivan quickly patented the firearm and once again, they had another hit on their hands. Gen Z ate the marketing up and soon millions of youngsters were registered gun carriers. Anything to be like Naomi.

            Driven to madness by Naomi’s continued success, Kylie stalked her all over Southern California. One afternoon following a splendid lunch at the Chateau Marmont, Naomi was escorted outside by her date, Jacob Elordi, when a knife wielding Kylie jumped out of the bushes.

            “You little bitch,” Kylie growled, approaching Naomi with vicious intentions, “my family’s had to fight, fuck and pander its way to the top. You think you can just skip the line?”

            “Now wait just a minute,” Jacob said, stepping towards Kylie.

            “Shut up, Elordi!” Kylie yelled, waving the long blade at him. “Euphoria sucks and so do you! Beat it!”

            Terrified of the blade and her chic foundation, Jacob scampered away like a rat, leaving Naomi on her own.

Kylie moved towards Naomi, her disposition scarier by the second. “I’m sick of Timmy talking about you. I’m sick of Knicks games, but I’m even SICKER of him talking about you. You, you, you. Naomi, Naomi, Naomi.”

As she got closer, Naomi looked at her face and aside from the heavy makeup, she noticed bloodshot, dark eyes similar to those of a feral beast. At a loss for words, she backed away as onlookers watched the scene with their phones out.

“Well no more,” Kylie screeched, lunging at Naomi with the knife.

Naomi calmly sidestepped her, brandished her patented .38 and shot her in the belly. Kylie crumbled to the ground and screamed in pain. Naomi stood over her, blocking the sun. Kylie looked up as blood poured out of her like a faucet and gasped at her might.

“Babe,” Naomi said, kicking the knife away, “the only thing more essential in this town than plastic work is heat. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Kylie attempted a comeback, but before she could say anything, Naomi put a bullet through her head. The onlookers quickly surrounded Naomi and the lifeless Kylie, like flies to excrement. Slowly, Naomi looked around at all of them and holstered her piece. She looked down at Kylie once more and shook her head in embarrassment.

“You come at the queen, you best not miss.”

At this Omar Little inflected line, the small crowd lost their minds and quickly showered Naomi with their praises and shouts, desperate to touch her, basking in her aura. Naomi took it all in stride and stood there gallantly as the filthy Jenner blood pooled around her chunky Balenciaga’s. 

The incident increased her infamy tenfold and the Naomi Stone .38s continued to sell like hot cakes. People all over the world marveled and guffawed and wondered how a nobody from a small town shot to the top so quickly. 

Some stars are born; others are made in thirty to sixty seconds.

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Miller was born in Central New York and attended college in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since 2020, he's written, produced and directed six short films - one of which won an award at the Cayuga Film Festival - and written three feature screenplays that have placed in various contests. Although he's primarily a screenwriter, he also writes short stories. He currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Find him on: Instagram and X.