Living and Maintaining

How did I get here? Staring down an iron barrel in the dead of the night. The scene is wrapped in darkness with a solitary spotlight on me as if I were to begin a soliloquy on the spot. I stand there suspended like a puppet waiting for the Puppet Master’s hands to pull my strings. I cannot see my breath in the biting air, am I even breathing? His silence is bone chilling. Heat rises from his mouth like smoke from a chimney. He has hell in his eyes; they are all I can see through the shadow of his hood. I can only imagine his feral nostrils flaring at my pungency; I know he can smell my fear. It is not hesitation that stays his hand, the pistol points straight at me with such vigor and conviction it is as if he is judging me. Maybe the executioner is in deliberation.

What did I do to deserve this? This must be fate’s twisted, dark humor at play again. See, I’m sharp to the dealings of these hands, I’ve seen death before I took my first breath. If my mom were here, she would have no problem giving the grandiose retelling of her son’s Indiana Jones style escape from the womb. She is a bit dramatic. She calls me “the best thing to happen to [her],” or “the light of [her] life.” I do not think her zeal is hereditary. Personally I would be uncertain of any light a bastard provides. As she went into labor, Fate’s mischievous hands fashioned a knot in my umbilical cord. The doctors believed this surely spelled a premature death, but I guess the universe felt to stall my death until now. This may have been his plan all along, let me out of check to get me into checkmate. Well-done Fate.

A week from today will make it eighteen years since that day. Celebrating life does not seem as important when you are facing death. It’s not fair. All that I’ve given up, all that I’ve never had and it all ends with a piece of folded and molded lead. I mean, as a single mother, my mom did her best to teach, guide and provide for me, but at a young age I realize that everyone must play the hand that they are dealt. Him and I are no different, both just two pawns in the grand scheme of things. Our paths diverge from a single moment when fate decides to get hands on. Although my path leads down the road less traveled, his leads down a path where the road is paved with people like me. I’m college bound with goals set on becoming a doctor. The hands of a doctor are like the hands of Fate. They both work on the lines of life and death. But even the hands of my death dealer hold the same power. The only difference is Fate’s omnipotence. His hands can reach out and touch anybody, anywhere or everybody, everywhere. He has been here the whole time, looming over the triggerman. With each second that creeps by I see him clearer.

I see the hand of Fate perch itself on the left shoulder of the gunman, fingers dangling like bodies from the gallows. His pasty, pale hand leads up a mangled cloak made from the black of night. As the night fashions into a hood, a face of neither human nor animal takes shape in the gaping abyss. He has stars as eyes; they are fiery, bright and piercing. His mouth is nothing but a wisp that only forms into a sneer or a grimace. His cloak is endless like the night sky mimicking his limitlessness. He extends his right arm; his pale hand resembles the moon, and I am the tide as he beckons my soul. He points his bony index directly at me, and as he gestures for me to come closer his finger curls into a scythe. At that moment, the gunman’s trigger finger curls just the same.