An Image of the Moment

by daniel gothard

first weapon and pointing the gun at the centre of the sergeant's profusely sweating head. He suddenly looks as if he will beg for his life, but he takes a breath, closes and opens his eyes and does as he has been told to do; lifting the desk lid as carefully and slowly as a man with no self-confidence holding a newborn baby. He looks at the camera again; his eyes imploring the wall-mounted machine to help him.

  'Look at the camera one more time and that will be the last thing you see. Do you understand that?' you whisper the words close to his face - you are almost nose-to-nose, feeling and smelling his hot, malodorous breath. You notice the smell of smoke on your clothing for the first time.

  You expect the crash of doors being flung open and many police screams to drop your weapon in every moment that passes.

  But for now, it is just you and the sergeant.

  'You lead the way to the woman and boy,' you say.

  'Dad ... daddy,' your son shouts as he sees you approach. You are behind the sergeant's back - the gun pressed into his spine. You do not want to scare your son.

  Your wife smiles, but her smile is full of anxiety. She knows why they were brought to the station. And she knows you are not walking towards them with a police officer because everything is all right now.

  The sergeant stops. His shoulders heave. You notice the ear-piece again. You think of your son's waxy ear and pull the communication device out of the earhole quickly; scratching his lobe and making him react by clutching the side of his head.

  'This isn't personal,' he says. 'I'm just ...'

  'What? You're just following their orders?' you reply, trying to keep your voice calm and low. You smile at your son and nod whatever form of courage you can muster towards your wife.

  'Yes, basically that's it. I have to do this. It's my job. It's the way things are, the law.'

  'That's just bollocks. You have a choice, we all do. You've made a decision to be a part of the prob ...'

  He pushes back as swiftly as he can - he has some considerable heft in his upper-body and you are taken by surprise - and swings his left arm towards your face. You duck as fast as you can but still take a glancing blow to the bridge of your nose: your eyes flash closed and open like the shutter speed of a camera and the strength of the blow is enough to make you stumble sideways and lower your gun momentarily.

  You look up and see the sergeant coming at you - he looks victorious now, none of the sweaty desperation for his own mortality that you saw and sensed before. The earpiece told him to end you. He feels like a hero now, having delivered the opening salvo; his eyes are wide with hate.

  Your wife is holding your son's arms - he is screaming for the sergeant to stop hitting his father, pulling away from his mother's protective grip to try and help you.

  The sergeant is on top of you; your gun has slipped a few inches from your grasp. The older man is punching you with both fists - one, two, one two; each connection with some part of your head brings new pain. Then he stops for a second, swings his right elbow around and you watch your son flip over and lie at his mother's feet. He had broken free to help you - your little boy. His lip is cut and he is crying.

  'No fucking way,' you shout.

  Your voice is full of a rage you have not previously vocalized, only used internally whenever some additional freedom or liberty is pulverized.

  You use the seconds that the sergeant's body is slightly askew to enable your hips to twist with speed and strength and throw the policeman off balance. He wobbles and slips off your centre.

  Now you have him, you think.

  You roll and crawl towards the gun, grab it and turn - pointing it at the focus of your fully realised hatred. The sergeant knows what is coming. His eyes have shifted back into a recognition that might is not always right. His face is red and drowning in sweat now.

  'No, don't do it,' your wife shouts at you. 'Don't do what they ...'

  'Take the boy down the corridor to the back gate,' you say calmly.

  Your wife looks at you - you know she is trying to think what to say to change the outcome; her head slightly turned in sadness. Then she takes your son's hand and they run.

  'Easy, take it easy and slow. You'll get the death penalty for this, mate,' the sergeant says. He stands up slowly. His hands held up in surrender.

  'Too late for that. Too late for any of this anymore. You are the face of this new world of blatant, engineered chaos and order.' Your voice is getting louder, more fierce, your teeth are clenched. 'You are the face of the lies, the ones that tell us we can all sleep well; that we're protected. And you are the one who hit my fucking son. Nobody hits my son. Nobody.'

  As you say the last word you open fire on the sergeant. You fire six shots into his head and body. The first two - chest and stomach - make him collapse to his knees; his eyes are bulging with shock and pain. You move closer and finish him off; taking a final look at his face as a trail of blood leaks from both corners of his mouth. He chokes on a gush of bubbling blood for a moment and then is still.

  You run down the corridor, wiping blood from your eyes. You know there is a gash above your right eyebrow and the constant trickle makes you blink incessantly.

  The gun touches your leg; the muzzle is hot, you think of your burned-out house. Ashes to ashes, you whisper. You are looking up at every camera and smiling; giving the middle-finger to the last one before you join your wife and son. You smile at them and reach out to stroke the back of your son's head.

  'We have spent too long on this episode. Your future memory is fighting for definition. You are becoming too involved in what comes next. You must see more of the wider picture before time moves along too far,' the balloon says.

  'A man was killed. A police officer was murdered by you,' you say.

  'You murdered him and you saw exactly why,' the balloon replies. 'This is all on you and how things will become.'

  'How can you sound so soulless about everything? Is this how everything becomes, as you put it, will everyone just shut out emotion and reason?' you ask the balloon. You want to take the glasses off - the burn of the rims is beginning to feel so pronounced - like a slow-build engraving around your eye-sockets - that it makes you feel as if you might never be able to remove them from your face; that your eyes will be forever open to the future-truth, but never in the present again.

  'You felt emotion when your son was attacked and injured, didn't you? You felt the reason for murder was justified in the way the police and the other so-called protectors of law and order had been ordered to behave, after the burning of your house and the abduction of your family. If you think you hear a soulless cadence in this voice it is because you decided on the method of delivery a long time in the future.'

  You nod, breathe out slowly - think of air leaving the balloon and wonder if that is why you eventually decide to use the slightly diminishing bag of air in front of you - a perfect place to store secrets; who would ever suspect something so innocuous as a party decoration? You blink a couple of times, the heat from the glasses is definitely increasing. You wonder if the sunglasses hold in the intensity of your visions and this heat and pain increases as your knowledge of the future and its horror does the same. You feel resigned to whatever comes next; whatever you become.

  The hall which opens out before your tired, hot eyes is massive and filled with dissonant voices; faces you vaguely recognise - most of them seated in rows around the perimeter. It seems to you like a place of governmental matters; an environment where the biggest decisions are made, were made, at some other point in time. You look around at the walls - covered in agitprop posters: warnings about health reforms - no more care for those who harm themselves with alcohol or drugs; the need for tighter security: "Look to your neighbour as your friend. Trust the people you really know ..."

  There is a huge backdrop poster, more of a banner - swaying behind a long, high bench at the back of this room.
Its lettering broadcasts the ultimate truth-turned-lie: Working as One for the Good of Our Land, and how we must educate to elevate.

  All of the posters have red and black spray-painted crosses through them. The messages have been received, understood and discarded.

  The men and women sitting behind the long, high bench are talking among themselves. You are walking towards them. There is an empty chair behind the centre of the bench. You know it belongs to you. You know you are in charge of these proceedings.

  As you approach the bench you walk past three men, their hands chained behind their backs. All three of them look bruised and tired. They have no seats; nowhere to rest or think. You look at their faces, but they do not look back at you. On either side of the men are armed guards. One of them is Sam. He nods at you and smiles. You nod back and a memory of holding Isabel's blown apart head passes through your mind. Sam looks older now; stronger. He has lost the flab and looks like what he has obviously become: a true believer; a hollow-eyed killer for this cause.

  You shake hands with some of your comrades behind the bench and sit down. There is a gavel in front of you. You pick it up and hammer it down upon the desk four times. There are many dents on the desk from previous gavel use. The room quietens.

  'You three, move closer to the bench,' you say.

  Sam and the other guard use their