To Smoke a Gun

7/30/2019 To Smoke a Gun

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/to-smoke-a-gun 1/5

To Smoke a Guna Flash of Story

by: Angie T. Jeffreys © 2013

Opposite from my eyes, and my shuddering lids, I stared into a barrel. Metal, narrow,

narrower if I looked deeper: I wanted to know what was inside. Suddenly, an explosion erupted

from the trigger. A spark flashed light onto the barrel walls, like a fire screaming for oxygen to

just get out, and then a second later the smell of sulfur and firecrackers.

My face splattered into billions of tiny blood orbs - I shattered into trillions of cells that fell

dead on the floor. But I didn’t know this, because I didn’t see anything after the spark - I died

when I saw the gun aimed straight at my third eye.

That’s where he pointed it. Behind and under the barrel, there’s a handle on the gun, and on

that handle, along with the trigger, there’s a hand. And that hand belonged to someone with a

serious sunspot on his brain.

That’s my ex-boyfriend, Samuel. I called him Samuel - he liked Sam, but his full name felt

more intimate since I was the only person who could say it, and he just let me say it. He let me

say a lot of things. Samuel listened. He was so sensitive. I could have loved him. I told him I

did. When he said he didn’t feel the same way at first, I couldn’t tell him I just said it to be nice.I really could have learned, though - plan B is better than plan C, and so forth at our age.

We were 24. We were watching each door of possibility for a happy future close in our faces.

We were lawyers, but so was everyone else, and it didn’t mean we had jobs. We were waitresses,

but so is everyone else, and jobs are scarce. Scarcer are lovers as we grow old.

By 30, no one can possibly be left un-marred by antidepressants, divorce, or terminal

loneliness. We’ll cleave to whatever we can who won’t repulse us. This is what I did. I assume

it’s this way for everyone else. There is security in numbers, sometimes the who doesn’t matter so much.

So he shot me. He threw me across the universe like stars in the sky. So he could look up at

me forever. Obviously, this is like a simile or a metaphor for something else. I wouldn’t be

1



speaking if I were already dead, and I seriously doubt I could even if I were to wish for it, in the

first place. Dead is dead.

Ironically, it’s a metaphor for a box he gave me as a present. It may have been a 7 or 8 month

anniversary. He kept track of those things, so I got used to unexpected and decadent gifts on

needlessly flagged dates somewhere in the Calendar App on his iPhone. Maybe a song played.

Maybe our song played to remind him. Maybe he’d assigned us a song of which I am still not

aware. Maybe not though, because the gift was pretty fucked up.

I stripped the loops of ribbon, stapled into something I wouldn’t ever have called a bow. It

had been re-taped, possibly re-used Scotch Tape over the original sticker, also used in another

past gift exchange. Maybe the earrings he gave me for my birthday; it might have been blood

red.

“You’re going to die.”

“Really.”

“You’ve been wanting this for so long. You’ve been so sad, and I think you cry harder every

single morning than you did the day before. This will make you stop crying.”

I stared at Samuel, Sam, Sammy. He said these things. I never told him what would make me

happy, besides common decency. I’m depressed. If I knew what would fix it, and if it could be

bought, I’d have found and already pre-ordered 5 of that Philosopher’s Stone from Amazon.But Samuel, he prophesied in his deliverance of the package from his possession into mine

with hints I clearly didn’t originally understand.

“Come on, open it.” Samuel started to tear the brown paper grocery bag he’d used as

wrapping paper.. The tape was fresh, and I could still smell the faint adhesive. I ripped the box

out from his eager fingers’ reaches.

“You went through all this trouble for me: please let me enjoy digging into this probably

fantastic gift.”I continued to tear the paper, a little slower than Samuel would have liked, but I started where

he’d left off, so that seemed to quell his peculiar anticipation until I untaped the lid. It was a New

Balance ladies sneaker box, size 6 and 1/2. I wear a nine, so I knew they weren’t shoes.

2



I playfully dropped the lid in Samuel’s lap, and there were wrinkles of frail tissue paper like

snake sheds covering something darker beneath. It looked probably black, and not something

that is bought in sets.

Shooing away the flakes of gift box liner, I was confronted with a revolver. It was small, and

it was more old fashioned looking than I thought they might even make anymore. I at least

thought he’d pick a modern, more sleek and aerodynamic design. But, it turned out, the box did

possess a mismatched pair of accessories. Alongside the gun, under the skin of tissue paper laid

a single bullet, possibly silver: I didn’t ask.

“You want us to play Russian Roulette? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Well, no, not really,” I was comforted by those words, but then he followed with these. “I’m

not playing.”

“Well, I’m sorry, watching you shoot yourself in the head, on a gamble, that’s not going to

solve my depression.”

“No, you don’t get it. The gun’s for you. But I can’t commit murder. I will never work in

this town again if I’m even accused.”

“I don’t get it. Who am I supposed to kill? Why would it end my problems? They’re in my

head, I can’t help it. Shooting anyone isn’t going to change........oh.”

“I knew you wouldn’t set this into motion, but I think it’s what you’ve really been wantinglately. You say you hate your life. You say life is oppressive, that you can’t breathe anyway.

You probably are already on a waiting list for a new liver, right? That’s what you drink. That’s

how sad you are. You take pills. I do everything to make you happy. I don’t work. Nothing

works.”

“Are you saying I’m not gracious enough? Samuel, thank you for staying with me while I’ve

been so sad, but I don’t actually want to end my life.” I started crying, and mascara ran into the

whites of my eyes, dimming both sides of the spectrum. “I don’t even want to be this sad.”“I need to stop drinking. I know I do, but not with a gun. Please.” My eyes were netted with

clumps of wet mascara. “You bought this. You thought about this. You said yes to this. On my

behalf.”

3



“So you want to live, and you want to moan and choke on your tears while tequila shoots out

your nose, because you’re throwing up beside the bathtub, on my floor.”

“That happened one fucking time, Samuel! You know I didn’t mean it! And I didn’t say

anything about trying to kill myself that night.”

“You didn’t have to. You swallowed a pint of tequila to chase about 50mg of clonazapam.”

“I was trying to make it come back up. I made a mistake. When are you going to forgive me

for that?”

“I don’t need to forgive you, I feel sorry for you. And I feel sorry you, because I just love you

so much, otherwise, I wouldn’t try even this last shot at making you feel better for as long as you

need.”

He gazed into my black eyes. I looked to him like I already might be spilling blood. The

blood of the depressed, it must be black. We must think of no one but ourselves. We take

everything, even ourselves, and we give no one around us peace. We die alone. Or in my case, I

get to let my boyfriend watch.

“Baby, it’s okay. I’ll hold your hand.” He lifted the gun from the box, and he inserted the

bullet into the chamber. I don’t know much about guns.

I know how to aim in a video game. I played Duck Hunt on my Nintendo pretty well, but that

was one red, plastic button and a bunch of cartoon ducks in a row. I didn’t watch a single thinghe did.

Eventually, everything had been clicked or cocked into position, and he placed the gun in my

right hand, then taking my left. He told me to be careful, which I thought was pretty funny.

Then he said, “There’s just the one bullet.” Oh.

I raised the gun in a general side direction, flailing it away from pathetic scene like cigarette.

I straightened my arm, and I peered down the barrel, but I was actually just aiming at a lamp.

My finger had not yet reached this heavy, metal trigger - the kind that pops blood blisters on your trigger finger if you squeeze the wrong way. If I shoot, I thought, “his favorite Ikea lamp would

explode.

“Whoa Nelly, don’t wave that around like a cowboy! Come on.”

4



“You’re right. I should just use it.” I gazed as deeply as I could through the dark veil of face

paint into his blue river eyes as I turned back towards Samuel, and his hand, still holding mine.

“I think I wanted you to do it for me. I understand why I have to do it, myself, though.”

I twirled my wrist around and fired the one shot I had to work with. The bullet screamed like

a fire into dust and air, but it wasn’t hungry for oxygen; it just lusted for Samuel’s head.

The End.

5

Documents

To Smoke a Gun