Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Jeremy's Broken Moment

Jeremy sits on the edge of his bed with a loaded gun in his hand. He stares at the floor molding in front of him, neither focused on it or focused on the gun that rests in his peripheral foreground. He cannot focus on a single object because his mind wanders on the dark light that surrounds him. There is no distinct point of concentration in his mind. Only waves of terror, pain, and decision. This is the end.
He places the nozel of the loaded gun into his mouth. His lips can feel the hardness of the gun's metal and hard edges. His teeth clank against the long shaft of the weapon that will kill him. The flat end of the gun scratches the top of his mouth. He can taste the sharp and electric tang of cold steel. He can feel the barrels opening with his tongue.
He pulls the trigger. The trigger is stiff and hard to finally snap, but it does. The entire gun quakes with force and jolt the crashes against his teeth and mouth. His lips wrap tightly around the gun to hold it steady as the bullet makes its was down the barrel. Finally, it escapes.
At first, Jeremy cannot feel the bullet in his mouth. The bullet flies in dead air, only hitting the falling saliva that protrude Jeremy's glands. But as the bullet moves freely, it finds the back of Jeremy's throat. It shreds through the first thin layer of membraned esophagus, twisting and turning through layer after layer. Then, once it has penetrated the flesh, it finds bone. All the nerve endings have been singed to feel extraordinary pain followed by nothing. The blood is evaporated by the heat of the moving vessel. A vessel of death.
The bullet enters Jeremy's soft, pink, and electromagnetic brain. Moving through like a wrecking ball, the bullet destroys the communication between each synapse. His mental conversation falls flat. The topic is lost. But the bullet is not done. It still proceeds to escape the caverns of Jeremy's brain, breaking through cellular membrane, fluids, blood, water, and bone. The bone crumbles in the presence of the bullet, becoming dust in its wake.
The last level is the skin. It cannot contain the force of the bullet, nor will it try. Rather, it opens up for the bullet to find it's freedom in the open air before it.
Jeremy dies. The bullet lives on.

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