Anger

The anger welled up inside him as another rejection slip slipped out of the envelope and floated to the floor.

He picked up the well-oiled Colt .45 automatic and thumbed the safety lever, slamming a deadly copper jacketed round into the chamber.

He spun the chair slowly around and leaning forward, grasping his right wrist with his left hand as he steadied the pistol against the windowsill.  The back of the postman’s neck was exposed under the pistols’ sights as he slowly squeezed the trigger with the very tip of his index finger.

The pistol erupted in an ear-shattering explosion of smoke and flame, bucking high in his hand.  The low velocity- high energy round leapt from the muzzle and covered the distance to the postman’s head in a fraction of a second.  Bone, blood and brain erupted from front side of the postman’s head as it literally evaporated when the bullet transferred its energy load into the target.

“He should have learned to duck.” He said as he laid the still smoking .45 back down on the desktop.

Wilson turned back to his typewriter with renewed vigor.  It was the fourth mailman he’d dropped this week.  They were starting to stack up there on the sidewalk.  Pretty soon the neighbors would start bitching again.  They had complained bitterly when he had been forced to deal with the home delivery guys that kept bugging him.  First, it was the trucks left idling in the street, then it was the bodies that had stacked up at the curb.  Nobody seemed to understand.  The city guys had eventually come around and dragged the bodies off the street, but it took a while, and they did get…unsociable after a while.

At least the home delivery guys had stopped coming around.  Maybe the thing to do would be to get a new set of neighbors.  Wilson knew how to do that too.  He glanced down at the desktop, the acrid odor of gunpowder filling his nostrils…

Wilson awoke covered with sweat and shaking mildly.  He would have to back off of the coffee!  Yikes, what a dream.  He felt a visceral twist in his guts as he looked down at the desktop and realized that his .45 was lying there.  Surely….

He glanced out the window….no, no bodies. “Thank the Lord,” whispered Wilson, as he slipped the loaded magazine out of the receiver and placed the .45 back in the middle desk drawer.

Did he have a chance?  Not really. But he would keep writing, just the same.