I stare downward, trying not to make eye contact. I feel my hands shaking noticeably as they sit on my knees. I glance slightly to my right and see a young woman kneeling a few feet away. She looks like she has been through some shit in her life. I can’t help but wonder what her story is. I notice her hand moving closer to the bag she is wearing across her body. I try to imagine what she has in there that is so important.
This teenager is an amateur. He didn’t even wear a mask to a robbery. Stupid fuck. I am 99 percent sure he doesn’t propose to hurt anyone. He probably just needs drug money like the rest of the burger punks in this shithole of a city. God forbid this kid get a job and earn his money like the rest of us. I continue to watch the woman next to me through my peripheral. I try to shake my head and tell her to stop whatever she is reaching for. If she waits, he will get his money and be gone from our lives forever. It’s not worth a confrontation and somebody getting hurt. As hard as I try to get her attention, she doesn’t see my empty pleads to stop. Somebody is going to get hurt.
Somebody does get hurt.
Decisions
When do you know what’s right?
What allows you to stop your thought on a definite answer?
Split second or sought?
It’s more fun to do instead of not.
To numb yourself to the effects and submiss.
Consequences or not, what happens, happens.
They say the smart will relish in a cause.
They become okay with the outcome.
When having a say is all anyone really wants.
The truth is impossible to discern.
What happens is going to happen regardless.
When the truth is that you will never get a say.
A summit in disguise.
Why not have a say in what you think you know?
After it’s done, should you deserve to feel?
Distraught with the thought of another altered life.
It’s easier to not look in that direction.
Will you choose wisely?
Janny
I awaken the next morning with yet another thrashing headache. I decide not to self-medicate because I need to feel something right now. I’ve felt so numb lately, and this pain in my head, it’s giving me hope that I might not be completely cracked.
Today is the funeral for Sean’s brother. I cannot fathom how hard this day is going to be on him. I know he needs me there by his side, but I cannot muster the energy to leave this room. I give myself one of my famous pep talks in hopes of motivating my brain. Do it for Sean. He has been there for me so much lately, he deserves me. Of all the days, he deserves me today. I toss on my clothes from yesterday and decide the only way to get through this day is with some liquid resolution. I stalk through the front door unnoticed and head to the nearest bottle of liquor I can find.
I already know what I want before I open the door. I need vodka, the kind in a big jug. I find the vodka isle and immediately become overwhelmed. My eyes skim across the labels on the bottles.
I never realized there were so many different brands, flavors, sizes. It’s too much for my head to comprehend. Where do they keep the normal vodka? Why does anyone need vodka that tastes like cake? Blueberries? I stand there staring, feeling like I’m going to cry at any moment. Why? Over fucking vodka? I am a mess. How do normal people make this kind of decision? My eyes rest on a label that looks familiar to me. Skol. I remember always seeing this bottle on the top of my granddad’s fridge when I went to visit. This will work. I grab my prize and make my way through the store.
For a slight moment, having the vodka near me, I feel like everything might be okay. I might be able to get through this day. I might be able to get through tomorrow. I want to feel like I have a fighting chance to get through whatever this is that I’m experiencing. Will I ever be able to get out of this? Am I searching for hope that doesn’t have a chance?
As I lift my head to see if anyone had noticed my near mental breakdown, I see a man near the register. He doesn’t look much younger than me, and for a second, I think he looks cute in a bad-boy vibe kind of way. He carries himself stiffly, like he is hiding something. For a split moment a shred of fear bursts through my intestines. I quickly push the feeling away.
I watch him as he puts his right hand under his shirt near his lower back. He hesitates for a moment, then pulls out a gun. My whole body freezes. What in the actual hell? My first instinct is to drop my body down so he can’t see me. I wasn’t quick enough because I hear him yelling for me to come up front where he is standing.
Damn it.
My legs are so weak, I can barely stand up. Part of me just wants to stay right where I’m at. I don’t want to move, just hide here where I am and pretend this isn’t happening. I think about the movies I’ve watched and the people that have been in this exact situation. What do they do? They listen. They do what the guy with the gun says. I clench my vodka for dear life and shamble toward the front of the store. I see him point the gun at the cashier as she fumbles to remove money from the register. I feel the moisture seep through my skin and lay a sticky presence on my exterior. I stand next to another customer who is equally perplexed about the situation. He tells us to kneel on the floor and shut up.
I let my mind drift to an unpleasant place. A place where I envision that this is how I die. These are going to be my last moments on this earth. I’m going to die in an odorous shithole store, getting shot up by a punk kid. Would it really be the worst way to die? I would rather succumb to the earth via murder instead of offing myself. If this guy does it for me, then I won’t be labeled as the girl who killed herself. More importantly, I would go to Heaven and not Hell—unless I would still go to Hell because I wanted to die all along. Does it even matter?
Everything around me begins to go black. I can only see what’s directly in front of me and nothing else. I can’t deal with this feeling right now. I tell myself to hold it together, but the odds are not looking good. I plead with my brain to stop what’s about to happen. My eyes explode in silent tears and I can feel them falling down my cheeks one by one and onto the front of my shirt. I focus on my breathing and try to control the amount of air I let into my nose and remove from my lungs.
I remember what Dr. Hibner told me at our last session. He told me that when I feel a panic attack starting, I need to find something to concentrate my eyes on. I find a crack in the floor near my left knee and focus my attention on it. I notice it’s a very uneven crack, maybe four inches in length. My assumption is that it was small at the beginning, and over time expanded. I see dirt and debris stuck in its depth. Part of me wants to take the nail file out of my purse and scrape out the gunk that rots inside. I ponder how many years of dirt has been swept and compacted into it.
I force myself to stare at the floor until I feel my hand slowly inching toward my purse. My brain remembers the .38 Special sitting in the front pouch—the gun I kept nearby in case I wanted to off myself. The only thing I want right now is to get out of this store before I lose my shit in front of these people. I wait. I watch. I convince myself that it’s the wrong move. I need to get out of here, now.
When his head is turned away, I make my move.
I grab the gun.
I cock it.
I pull the trigger.
Why?
How can three letters be so perplexing?
The ultimate question with no straight answer.
Never to know what’s in store.
Reasons are not important, or are they?
Is it possible to survive without the knowledge?
Can a day be lived with no story?
A new beginning to an end.
Unanswered words driven into your skull.
Aching away in the gray matter.
A piece that is locked away.
Silent for now but soon to resurface.
The swell grows into obsession.
A search for the unknown.
Seeking t
he key to what you think will surface.
Down there you know there is no difference.
To know, to not know.
Will you find resolve in someone or something?
Or do you simmer it into the air?
Ask your question.
Mark
I am sitting in a coffee shop down the street from the University. Coffee has never tasted so pleasant to me. I reach into my pocket to check my phone. I fumble a pill and pop it into my mouth. No missed calls this morning. I am appreciative of the silence.
I flip through the newspaper and find a small article about the robbery. It amazes me that such a significant day in my life has such a small place in this dense newspaper. I read that the woman who knelt beside me that day, the one who killed the shooter, committed suicide that very same day. It explained that she may have had a history of mental illness and PTSD that was undertreated at the time.
I can’t help but feel that the situation didn’t have to turn out the way it did. People didn’t have to die that day. Still, I can’t help but replay those moments in my head over and over again. It feels like a movie that’s stuck on replay. Starting, stopping, pausing, rewinding.
That woman withdrew a gun from her bag and shot the gunman in the back. He didn’t have the slightest clue what had happened. Right before he collapsed to the ground, he pulled the trigger of his own gun and pierced the liquor store attendant square in the temple. The woman and I both knelt on our knees in our assigned spot and watched them both bleed out onto the concrete floor. It was like everything paused. There was no sound. No movement. No breath. No light. Nothing mattered to me at that moment.
It felt good.
There were no thoughts in my brain, just pure emptiness with no form of comprehension. It wasn’t until a customer entered the store before anyone bothered to call 911.
As I remained there on the floor, I couldn’t help but stare at the explosion of blood painted across the wall behind the counter. After a few moments of analysis, I noticed the speckles of brain matter rooted into the work of despair. A very dark part of me wanted to take a picture of the mess and blow it up into a piece of art. Something about the intensity of the patterns created by the bodily fluid made me feel like something existed in the world that was relatable to me. I don’t expect anyone to understand it. It’s impossible to explain in the human language.
So, the question begs, why was I the person that survived that day? Out of the four people in that liquor store on that treacherous morning, I was the soul that was spared. This is a statistic I cannot summon into a percentage. I am grateful to have survived, but I don’t get it. I don’t believe much in God, but people are telling me I was saved by God for a greater good. I don’t believe in that shit for a minute. What I do know is that I’m here to live another deceitful day in this biosphere. I guess I should be happy about this, but why? Nothing has changed, except now I have this radiating question of why.
Why me?
Why not spare the woman who kneeled next to me?
Why not save the store attendant who decided to show up to work that day?
Why not spare the burger punk another day of crime?
I am 100 percent sure I will never know the correct answer to this question. For the time being, I will discuss this with the Admiral with the intention of never setting foot in Joni’s liquor store ever again.
The End
Tomorrow Page 12