At the Bottom

Greg sat in the dimly lit room in his rocking chair. The only light came from the monitors on his desk casting an eerie glow over everything. He looked down at the stainless steel .357 cradled in his lap. Its lines traced a deadly elegance that he marveled for a while. Then he picked it up feeling the weight of the gun and its lead bullets. He turned it over in his hands a while and remembered the kick as it discharged its deadly cargo downrange. He could almost smell the spent powder as he recalled the feeling of power and precision of each shot punching a hole precisely where the red dot of the laser rested on the target.

Sighing deeply he briefly imagined what the 158 grain jacketed hollow point would do to the flesh of his upper jaw and where the path of the bullet might go on its deadly trek through his brain. He wondered if there would be pain. He did not turn the weapon in his hands towards himself. He had not crossed that line.

Greg's years of psychology classes told him that these thoughts along with the weapon in his lap were enough to have him committed against his will for a mandatory 72-hour hold. It was for that reason more than any other he could not tell anyone. His spouse would have him committed out of fear. He had no friends. He had plenty of acquaintances of the - man-nod at the ball game type - but no one he could tell this.

He wanted to tell someone. But he didn't dare.

He wanted someone to care, but not too much to act rashly.

He picked up the empty Scotch glass, stood up to go to the kitchen and vaguely remembered throwing the empty bottle away after the last refill. There was no more. He sat back down.

"What had brought him to this point?” he wondered. His life was not bad: a job, a family, a car, and two dogs, plenty of recreation time. Yet he wanted more than anything to cry. He waited, savoring that moment a while. Did he feel a tear welling up?

No, he decided, there were no tears. He had not cried since he could not remember when.

"When had he cried last"? He asked himself.

At the birth of his child yes, but those were tears of happiness and exhaustion and relief that the baby had recovered. He remembered seeing it flopped onto the steel tray looking completely lifeless. He remembered the score. "What was is called?" he thought.

"APGAR" yes, that was it. His son had an APGAR of 2. On a scale of one to ten, he only had two points of ten that meant he was alive. "APGAR stood for..."

He searched his memory, "Appearance, Pulse, Respiration.." those three he remembered. Try as he might he could not remember the rest. It didn't matter; his son had not had them anyway. His heart beat and he wiggled slightly giving him the two. But within a few minutes of furious effort by the team of nurses and doctors he was pink and screaming, a perfect 10.

Yes, he had cried then.

"But when had he cried from sorrow? When had he relieved his grief in that simple way?" He asked himself.

He searched his memory, back ten years, and twenty... "Was it more than twenty? He wondered.

"Where was he twenty years ago?" He thought back.

"No", he thought. "Twenty years ago was undergrad school and sliding into a boring marriage with my first wife. I had no emotions then."

"Earlier" he urged his mind. "When was the last moment he cried?"

He pictured each year back from twenty. "Twenty-one, No, Twenty-two, no, Twenty three, twenty-four, twenty five. No, NO, NO!"

Twenty-six years. "That was it!" he decided excitedly.

"Twenty six years ago this month…

When she left me."