Six Things the Shooter Took

News: High School Shooting Claims Twelve

 1. (at 24) We’re sitting on the steps in the dark watching the storm come and the wind gusts and the cool air touches my skin and it smells of water and the tree leaves on the big oak ripple like green waves and the undersides of the clouds flash in the distance, lightning too far away to see, and the cicadas stop rasping and in that perfect silence Anne takes my hand and I look at her and the wind gusts again with the sound of a million whispers, and now the rain comes in sheets and the blacktop glistens and we’re wet and she laughs and I say it, I finally say it, I’m not afraid to say it, “I love you,” and she looks at me with her eyes full of yes and says “I love you too, Cole” and I’m soaring and we kiss and the wind blows the flower pot with bleeding heart over and I pull away from her and run and to set it upright and she says “you look like a drowned rat, babe” and then the hail and it strikes the roof with staccato bangs

2. (at 26) there’s no AC and I’m soaking the tux and they play Pachelbel’s Cannon and Anne comes out in her wedding dress the one that she gasped when she saw and it was way too expensive but I got it for her anyway and I see her stop and lift her veil and the whole church turns to look and I can see her inhale and I can almost read her mind and see her take it all in her wedding day and “you may kiss the bride” and time and space contract to around us and we run outside together and confetti makes it like a snow globe of a bride and a groom and someone has tied cans to the car that old beat up crimson Dodge Magnum with the 357 engine and it backfires as we drive off and the bangs echo off the church walls  

3. (at 28) They tell me I can go back in the room and Anne says “Meet our son,” beaming, and the nurse hands him to me and he grabs my thumb and won’t let go and his hands are so small and I will do everything to protect him everything anything anything and I see my dad and his dad and his dad and all the dads and all the moms stretching back to eternity in his face and I can barely see through the tears and they hand him to me and I say “Welcome to the world, Shawn,” and I’m a father, God I’m a father and this is my son and I never knew I could love this much and she turns and a tray falls off the bed and there’s a clang and he’s crying

4. (at 46) The lot is filled with parents helping their children move into the dorm and the sky above is the color of dreams beginning and Shawn takes the last suitcase from that old Magnum that’s his car now and a young woman smiles at him and I wonder if they will sit on a porch in the rain someday and I don’t hug him, I shake his hand because he’s a man now we made a man and I watch him get smaller as he walks away and through the door and I think about cycles and time and distance and how everything repeats just maybe a little different and Anne says “We did good, right?” and I hold her tight and kids run by laughing and someone throws firecrackers and there’s the crackle and smell of smoke  

5. (at 56) We’re in the room at the clinic that awful room the sterile white walls and the smell of rubbing alcohol and she’s sitting on the table crying and I’m telling her “it’ll be okay, it’s just a scare” but it’ll never be okay again and the blinds are open and outside the window the leaves are falling from the blood red maple across the street, leaves that became more beautiful as they aged just like her but now they just fall wounded by time and soon to shrivel to a husk and then he comes in the buttoned white coat with the clipboard, glasses down on his nose and he’s uncomfortable and “O.K. Yes. Yes, I’m sorry, it’s malignant” and he wants to talk about treatment, but the words are just screams just false hope the sound of endings and she tries to look brave but she shuts her eyes and goes somewhere inside and God why her why us and there will never be an answer and she runs out of the room crying and the door slams with a bang

6. (at 74) its midnight and the halo of light from the television is the only light and the snow is falling, big, heavy flakes, over a foot now and there’s frost flowers on the window and I think of her and everything reminds me of her I should have moved and I put the disc of our wedding in the player and the memories try to save me but I’m too broken and God we were so young and there’s a crackling and the big branch on the oak tree finally gives out and falls with a boom there are sparks and the power gives up the ghost and  somewhere there are sirens and all the light in the room is gone and I sit in the darkness and the television screen is black like nothing it showed ever happened and the snow covers the world like a white shroud covering all the yesterdays and tomorrows that never were and

      all the beginnings and ends that never will be

and there is just nothing,

there never was

and darkness

so much darkness

David Newkirk (he/him) is a retired attorney living in Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to a number of legal articles, his creative work has previously appeared in New Letters, Amazing Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, Bewildering Stories, Literally Stories, the anthology Myths Subverted, Night Picnic and other journals. He is currently a candidate for the Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, where he is unlearning thirty years of writing like a lawyer.