Pointblank

The framework of society stands above & below me. The hardest thing to destroy, yet the weakest thing that exists. I know that I am different, yet I am afraid to tell the society. The possible abandonment, persecution is not something I want to face, yet it is so primitive to me. I guess being yourself means letting people know about inner thoughts too, not just opinions & fashions. I will be free one day, in the land of purity & my happiness; I will have a love, someone who is me in a way. Someday...possibly through this life, maybe another, but it will happen...

-Dylan Klebold

                                                             ***

I remember sanctuary. I wasn’t so lost that I didn’t ache for the sensation of walking these familiar halls under customary circumstance. I know these corridors like the back of my hand. I know their dents and bruises, memorized graphite and renovations. How many times have I walked this path? I feel the floor, solid beneath me as I always have. I smelt the carpet and I counted the lockers as they have always been. Despite all this, I feel displaced, splinted between normality and reality. Is this the school where I had grown up? More importantly, is this the school that made me into what I am? I have no time to think of the progression, no seconds to spend reflecting on how and why I was here. As of now, I was in the present.          

         I turned to the elated smile of my partner. His rifle was in constant explosion while he tore apart the school and its inhabitants. Holding his power in both hands, he clung to the recoil of his gun, killing devoid of contemplation, destroying  without consideration. But who was I to even notice the way he took their lives? I was doing the same. Was this fair? I chuckled at the notion and in an act of compensation; I exploded the head to my nearest left. Whose head? I don’t know. But more importantly, I don’t care.

While shots blended into the silence, I learned to drown out his triumphant shrills and shrieks of thrill. I was surprised to find that I didn’t register my victim’s pleas. It was more motivating to slay them mid-sentence, the splatter of their blood against the wall replacing intended cries. The silence that followed the kill was beyond description. It was a hollowed echo, and the depth went on and the only thing I knew to sever its weight was the intervention of yet another sharp gunfire, another life.

If I took any pleasure from my actions, I would have to tell you that the power we had seized in a few minutes time was overpowering any of my opposing thoughts. Such types of authority I or any man stood no chance against. Suddenly, understood the motives of dictators and executioners; I understood their outlook on life, on death. Life was futile, death was inevitable, and everything in between wouldn’t matter in the long run. This type of insight doesn’t come to most, and I took satisfaction in that. I took delight in what I was associated with and the pain that I was causing. I was swollen with pride while I saw the fear in the eyes of my sufferers. I was amused by the way they hid from fate. They duck under tables and shrink behind chairs. They hide in their lockers and ran down hallways they believe to be abandoned. Some take cover in the bathrooms and others try their luck with the ceiling tiles. My personal favorite however, was when one didn’t know how to hide when they see me and my gun; their life was over, and they knew.  For a moment before I killed them, I considered their survival. Of course, in the end they stood no chance.

I remember the cricket bombs in my pocket and smile to myself while my rifle shot through the window of a crowded classroom. I lit the fuse and toss the bomb with ease. A few screams are cut off with its detonation. I notice hysterical laughter and turn to my partner with a smirk. He follows my lead and we shoot out the windows of the remaining classroom around us, tossing in two and three bombs at a time before sprinting up the stairs to avoid their devastation. I wonder now how many I’ve killed.

I have spent a lot of time trying to define what it means to be euphoric. The word holds a firm magnitude that I believe is only appropriate for a few moments in a man’s life. Perhaps his wedding or during the birth of his first child, maybe euphoria is the loss of your virginity or the way it feels to wake up surrounded by loved ones on Christmas morning. But as I ran down that hallway in escape of our explosions, my face was elucidated with a smile that neither I nor anybody else has seen before. I was evading my hopes and my dreams, my expectations and disappointments.

As I ran I shot. I open fired at the walls and lockers; I shattered display cases execution style. My peripheral vision alerted me of a group of 3 boys fleeing down a flight of stairs to my right. They didn’t reach the bottom. I threw another cricket, howling with excitement while a corpse was flung down the stairs from the explosion. Walking through the gym, we claim anybody hidden under the bleachers.

Sometimes I would look at them after I was finished. I would predict the way I assumed the blood would pour; I would look through a backpack and find old pictures and assignments that were once due. I wondered, what was my motive? It was at this point, after the larceny of at least three dozen lives, that I began to contradict myself. Were these people really who led me here? Was it their rejection that put this rifle in my hands, the bullets in their skulls? Did their nepotism load my guns or their mockeries fill my propane tanks?

We had been causing havoc for approximately 17 minutes.

The sirens were coming closer, and we knew our time was up. Sitting where we were, we looked at one another, waiting to build the courage for what to do next.

Bodies scattered the hall and blood smeared the walls and I think about the things that have happened inside this building. I wonder where the breaking point must be. Are we crazier than the rest; to plan and save and fight and compromise over this day for years? We lied to everyone we knew, fooled everyone we loved; for what? People were dead, their blood on my hands, but did that fill the void?

I look to him and see the significance of his stare, on three. We said our goodbyes in silence.

Imagine for a moment, what it is like to know that you only have three seconds left to live and only three seconds left to think your preeminent and most momentous thoughts. What are you supposed to think of? Do you think of your family or your friends? The only companion in life you have is sitting next to you; his eyes clenched shut and his words muffled by the barrel of his gun. So tell me, what could you think of?

My brain pulses against the barrel while I take in my last sights and sounds. The hallway is desolate save for the ragged heaving beside me. I breathe in time with the only friend I will ever know, and suddenly find myself wishing for happiness in whatever afterlife we have to face. I hope we will face it together.

One: I wonder when they will find me.

Two: My eyes close and think of what I want my last words to be, my last message to a world that has ruined me.

“I wish I would have had a chance.”

Three.