Little Bit o Writing

Cold. All he felt was cold.

Not the warmth he’d felt as a child when his father pretended not to see him still awake, crouched in the shadows of his doorframe. Watching as his deft hands slipped the old dirtied rag that hadn’t seen water since the early 70’s up and through the machine. His father didn’t believe in bleach, claiming the mixture of oil, grease, and that thick spit that formed in the corners of your mouth while thinking of water when none was to be had was the best way to clean a gun. The forever fingerprints that tarnished the gold plating on the side contradicted that saying, but he was his father. Of course it was right.

Nor the warmth the first time his father clapped him on the back, hard, blood rushing to the ghost of a handprint, stinging, but a good kind of stinging. The stinging of a man’s approval. The two of them had gone to the range for the first time and he’d watched in reverence as his father spread his legs shoulder width apart, aimed, and fired. He’d felt the heat of the explosion in the chamber, seen the blast of fire at the tip of the gun, followed the trail to the target where the led had hit, three millimeters short of the bullseye. He tried to hide his jump at the foreignness of the sound but his father had just chuckled, saying he’d get used to it.

No, it wasn’t the warmth of hot tears trailing down cheeks in the back of a closet, forever asking why. Then the soft knock of his mother, light overwhelming him, a black box being handed over, he’d have wanted him to have it. That feeling of awe as his hands finally trailed over the old gold plating, felt the click of the safety, cocking and un cocking every night. Then repeating the holy ritual every night.

Instead he was cold. There was heat all around him. The lingering pressure in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger from metal kicking back. The warmth of the barrel from expelling light. Hot blood swarming where metal molded flesh. The writhing back and forth of the microscopic hairs in his ear drum, responding to the screams. The sun beating down upon the scene leaving nowhere to hide. With heat surrounding him, all he felt was the cold.