He took the gun from the bottom drawer, concealed it upon his person and left his office. He turned left and headed for the building’s elevator, the lump of cold metal weighing heavily at his side, safe in its holster.
He’d never fired it in anger. Only at targets to get used to the way it felt as it jarred in his hands each time it exploded and recoiled as his finger stroked then twitched the trigger. Sometimes for practice, sometimes to relax.
The elevator announced its arrival on the first floor, and he exited the small silver cell, then the building, before walking the six blocks to the meeting place, thinking always about the killing machine under his coat and the mess it could make, pleased he’d soon be rid of it.
In the bathroom of the bar they shook hands, he received an envelope of bills and handed over the gun and its holster to the new owner, giving instruction on how to fire it, what ammo it required, how to care for it, how to strap it to his body.
And then they parted ways and he was glad. Despite his line of work, he’d never needed it or its violent offspring. His fists had always sufficed. He was a man who needed no extension to his manhood.
He returned to his office relieved, pleased to have let that dead weight go.
Three days later he read about the deaths and cried for what he’d let go.
He’d never fired it in anger. Only at targets to get used to the way it felt as it jarred in his hands each time it exploded and recoiled as his finger stroked then twitched the trigger. Sometimes for practice, sometimes to relax.
The elevator announced its arrival on the first floor, and he exited the small silver cell, then the building, before walking the six blocks to the meeting place, thinking always about the killing machine under his coat and the mess it could make, pleased he’d soon be rid of it.
In the bathroom of the bar they shook hands, he received an envelope of bills and handed over the gun and its holster to the new owner, giving instruction on how to fire it, what ammo it required, how to care for it, how to strap it to his body.
And then they parted ways and he was glad. Despite his line of work, he’d never needed it or its violent offspring. His fists had always sufficed. He was a man who needed no extension to his manhood.
He returned to his office relieved, pleased to have let that dead weight go.
Three days later he read about the deaths and cried for what he’d let go.
Entered in The Bridport Prize, 2013.
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