I'm walking down the stairs in a dark alley. It's raining. If you can pin a place on fear, this is probably close to it. Lights are twitching and the swooshing sounds of cars can be heard. This is a cliché. Gray steps, gray walls. Full of cracks. I wonder what caused these cracks. Nature or man? Wind or gunshots? I don't have time for this. I reach the end of the stairs and I can't feel every single blood-cell going through my body. I can't feel my heart pounding and sweat coming down my forehead in slow-motion. I just can't see or feel any of these things. There's not enough poetry or movies in my life. No metaphors or subjectivism. Nothing will explode whenever a bad guy points a gun at somebody. That somebody dies. Families shall grieve. Explosives shall not go off.
The glass is yellow but probably not yellow at all. It's probably just the lights inside. It's transparent. I wonder if the color of lights has actually changed or just my thoughts. I wonder what is light. I have to kill six guys. This is really not the most appropriate time and place for this. The doorknob is gold and I'm not really sure why, but I'm grossed out by it. I feel like many unwashed post-bathroom or post-sex-with-a-hooker hands have touched this knob.
I twist the knob with my sleeve and the door slowly opens. This opening of the door, despite what I said earlier, did seem pretty poetic. As the door opened, the noise turned down. Gradually. Open door and silence. Confusion.
One, two, three, four, five, six. Six, five, four, three, two, one. I'm guessing these are the guys. They look at me, I look at them. They look at each other, I look the room. The light switch is just by the door. Finally a movie scene for me. There aren't any tables around, so I'll just lie down. The second guy on the left pulls a semi-automatic. Poetically speaking, that shit shoots fear.
I get a good look at where all the men are standing.
Click.
The lights are off, I'm on the ground and fear is already coming at me at more than a hundred miles an hour. These people don't even know me, but they'll kill me. That's hypocrisy, I don't even know them and I'll kill them.
There's me. On the floor. With six heavily-armed men shooting. With the lights out. Thinking about how there is absolutely no silence here. I can't see shouting faces when the shots are fired and that small speck of light appears. There is no classical music playing and the shots can't be heard. I can not withdraw from this situation. This is as real as reality. These guys are just stupid. They shoot right and left, but never down or up. You'd think they'd learn something from all the action movies they've probably seen. Maybe they like art movies and enjoy reading. Who am I kidding? They're wearing sport sunglasses in a basement and most of them wear more jewelry than old women. Maybe I should just kill them already.
I have eighteen bullets and I'm not the kind that misses. I sound like the kind that is a little bit too cliché, even when not wanting to be. I wouldn't describe the sound of a gunshot as "bang". I think it sounds more like a "pow" than a "bang" to me. "Ka-boom" doesn't even come close to what a bazooka sounds like. Gunshots don't sound like death screaming. They just sound like air being moved at an incredibly high speed. Things are not nearly as cool or mystic as books and movies tell you.
Three shots in each little piggy. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. Ten minutes ago, these people had families and whatnot and I've reduced them to meat, carbon and water. This is death. No reaper. No extreme darkness (despite the current situation), no horse with red eyes or walking skeleton. It's you. Minus all the frustrations. This is absolute relief. I like lying down here. I feel sort of peaceful. I don't feel like getting up and turning on the lights. I don't feel like explaining anything.
Call it what you will, "bang", "pow", "ka-boom" or whatever, but as close as my head was to that gun, I'd be lying if I said I heard anything. I'd be lying if I said anything, really.