The Gunshot
“I’m not sure he is the one for me.”
“Why play with him then?” I asked.
“Hmmmm, this is life,” she shrugged her shoulders. “It’s intriguing.”
“And you feel like you are a real woman,” I added innocently.
She smiled: as usual, when the answer is too evident or the question too silly
to answer. While I remembered her boyfriend, who once told me he’d kill her if
she were cheating on him.
We were just walking off and suddenly I realized we approached a place which
strangely coincided with the topic of our conversation. It was just a common
park. A little spot in the gate. And my memories.
It happened a few years ago, approximately in 1987, in summer. A friend of mine
and I worked at a local factory. That day we had a day off.
There was a crowd. Something had happened, something exciting enough for a crowd
to gather. And it was already over. We approached the site.
“She’s so young!” said a woman in the crowd.
“He stood right here,” said another woman, “in the trees. And she walked out of
the shop. He called to her, and when she turned round, he shot!”
“Oh Lord!”
“She fell on the ground! And he put the gun to his head and shot!”
“Oh!”
Blood... There was a pool of blood. I had never seen anything like that before.
And there were bits of gore everywhere. Maybe pieces of her brain. An hour ago
this blood was rushing in the young heart of that lady. She was alive and she
never knew she’d die after shopping. A piece of a person. A piece of a woman. My
friend looked at me in a strange kind of way. We were both fifteen. We didn’t
ask why he’d done it or, what had caused him to do so. We simply walked away.
“Do you remember what happened here a few years ago?” I asked her. Well, it was
improbable that she knew. This story never made it to the papers.
“Yes,” she said, looking back as thought looking for traces of blood.
“You are not afraid of – going through all that?” I asked with a sad smile. The
very idea of her being shot tortured my heart.
“But I–”
“So? You think she wanted to die that way? I don’t think so. Do you understand?”
“I do understand,” she said in a little while.
We slowly walked off, past the gate with a large spot which was made by the
bullet. A point in someone’s love. “Till death do us part.”
And I don’t know why, but I am sure they aren’t going to change the gates.
Copyright by Archer (2002).