Point Blank

Point Blank

            It’s not fair.

You wanted to go first, to be the one who said goodbye. But now, you’re stuck, with nowhere to go and no one to be.

You were driving home in your crappy car from your crappy job when he called.

            “It’s time,” he says, slurring and stumbling over his words.

 A shiver of heat slowly works its way down your spine, and your breathing changes, hard and fast. You’re excited. He’s probably drunk or high-maybe even both. But you know he knows what he’s doing. You both do.

It’s time. You turn the car around.

            That was two hours ago. Now, your buddy’s body is stashed in the trunk of your car. You drive erratically, not caring who or what you hit.

            The air in the car is claustrophobic; the humidity making the windshield foggy. All of a sudden, it starts to rain and you. You. Can’t. Breathe.

            You pull onto a random street and slam down on the brakes. Hard. The car jerks forward, pitching you into the steering wheel. You don’t care. Your adrenaline’s up and you can’t feel a single thing.

            As soon as you step out, the rain soaks your suit, but you barely notice. The car door remains open, with your briefcase standing solo next to it.

            The air is balmy, thick, giving hint to the late summer weather. You’re sweating, but the rain helps with that. Dilapidated buildings surround you, all their walls and doors boarded up and faded and rotting.

            You step into the deserted street. By now, you’re soaked to the bone, with the rain running through the remainder of your thinning hair.

            You stand straight, but your head is bent. It shows how hard you’ve worked for the last thirty-five years of your life. It’s the stance of someone who fought long and hard, with nothing to gain from winning, every failure weighing you down.

It’s the stance of someone broken.

            When you hold out your arms, the water drips from the matted strands of your hair and onto your hands. All the drops ricochet off, splattering when they hit the ground. Every drop is something lost, and you can’t get it back.

             Drip. Drip. Drip.

            Everything you ever did wrong fills your head. They come in flashes. The heartbreak. The death. The peace.

            The peace was the worst. She loved you, and you knew it, and somewhere in the depths of your heart, you loved her back. But you couldn’t do it; you couldn’t say it. So you shattered her instead. You never could’ve imagined what happened, but then, who could have?

            “I didn’t mean it,” you call out to her.

            Her voice whispers back to you in the rain.

            I know.

            “I love you.”

            Your voice comes out flat. Even now, you can’t say it. When it happened, you wanted to let her go, because you knew she would be happier without you. You told her to move out, to pack up her things and leave.

            You found her two days later in your bathroom with her eyes still open. It was painful for her. You didn’t want it to be painful. You can still feel her in your arms, and no one but you knows where she went.

            A sudden clap of lightning jolts you back to the present. The light illuminates the darkened street for a quick second.

            In that brief moment, you turn your head to face the row of buildings standing at attention. One seems to catch your eye. With the entire building made of faded brick, it has boarded up windows and doorways, and it looks to be the most desolate out of them all.

            It’s perfect.

            You turn and stride toward the building, hardly slowing when you snatch up your briefcase.

            You reach the door, and you can see that it’s boarded up with flimsy plywood. You glare at it fiercely for a moment, as if you’re expecting a stern look will cause it to come jumping off. When it doesn’t, you drop your briefcase and scratch at the boards barring you from entering. You claw at them with an almost feral harshness, animal-like. Chunks of the wood come flying out at you in response.

            Finally the door shows through, and you stop to compose yourself. Your hands automatically straighten your jacket-leaving bloodstains along the lapels-and pick up your briefcase, ignoring the throbbing from the splinters that were embedded into them.

            The first thing that hits you is the smell of the building, and then comes the humidity. It’s almost chokingly dusty, and with the wet air, it’s almost impossible to breathe. The air carries a sickeningly musty stench.

            All around there are mirrors. Some of them are shattered, giving the poorly lighted room an eerie kaleidoscope effect. You stand in the center of the room, and dozens of reflections of you stare blankly back at you.

            The same face you’ve known for your entire life looks exactly the same. Plain brown hair and eyes, a slightly lopsided nose and crooked teeth remind you of who you were.

            But that face-that’s not you anymore. You’re empty.

            This time you set your briefcase down with a carefulness bordering on reverence. You kneel on the ground, turn the dials to your four-digit number lock, and hear the tumblers click into place.

            You take out the gun. It feels leaden in your hands, heavier than it should be.

            As you stand up, you keep your feet planted and your head bent. You grasp the gun firmly between both hands. Finally, you lift your head to look at your reflection. And you realize something.

            It’s not you.

            It’s me.

            I think of everything that led up to this. My wife. My parents and my only friend. I lift the gun.

            And I fire. Point blank.