All The World

Halfaway

Oct 10, 04

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All the answers to the world were in that barrel. I could see them, taste them like gun powder, and feel them piercing me like bullets, because they were there. They were there, hiding in the barrel of the gun, just waiting for their chance to jump out and embrace me. All the questions I felt bubbling up were about to be answered because here it was—the all knowing, all seeing utility of the superiors. And it was trained on me.

I hope he felt powerful with that thing pointed at me. Dead center so I could see it too, something about to go off. Something that was supposed to kill me.

I guess I was supposed to be scared or something. I was probably supposed to listen to his orders or babble out what he wanted me to say because I was supposedly shaking in my boots. But, really, I didn’t. Really, I wasn’t. Seeing that gun the second I’d turned the corner of the street was like saying hello to an old friend. I was just waiting for it to return the greeting.

When you’ve lost so much, when the world crumbles away like you knew it would and you’re left scavenging for food and wearing clothes that should fit but don’t (that really don’t), when it’s all taken from you….

They call this Hell. This is Hellsville. You are now in the epicenter of a storm taking place across the planet in another world where it is probably worse but it doesn’t matter because they’re used to it. This is everyday stuff for them. For us it’s different, it is quite literally a hell on earth.

I dropped my “groceries” near the barber shop window. Better for someone else who needs it once I’m gone.

They’ll take it without thinking, thanking the blood stain on the sidewalk and not looking twice my way or where I’ll be dragged to. They’ll take the measly scraps I stole and carry it to their cubby and nibble away like squirrels in winter or ration it out in the family. I almost smile, because I’ll never have that and because they do. Because some things still haven’t changed.

It’s not like I don’t care. It’s just that you loose a lot in war and then all you have is some raw instinct to survive or fight and sometimes even that goes and you realize you have to accept everything. Things like: This is unfair. I accepted that the second he stepped around that building and pointed that hand gun at me. Things like: This is stupid. A stupid war we’ve been at for five years now; we all knew that. But really, you wouldn’t find someone around here who would cry now, not over this, we’ve all moved passed that.

But I can see the world through that barrel and that alone scares me and it brings back an old flame I’d long thought I’d blown out. It had done no good holding that torch of conviction and hatred up: light draws attention.

When so much is taken from you, when so much has been taken from everyone, you find reasons and things to blame on each other. And I blame this on the gun. It’s all there is right now to blame. You find that it accomplishes little but a little ego boost and relief as long as you don't really believe it. You find that it all fits to whatever you blame it on.

I can see every reason why that gun is wrong. Why it’s pointed at me. Why and how it has been slowly poisoning people by making them believe they had power and how it turned the moon black. Our sky is always smoggy. I can see every connection, everyone who died by that gun. I see his eyes are doing something similar behind the government goggles, justifying this. Right now the gun is wrong. Right now we’re all wrong.

There is little reason to fight now, so I don’t. My only defense is pride, has been for a while. I will not hold my hands up; I will not pose for this portrait. I won’t beg. I won’t cry. I’ll look him in the eye. I’ll look that thing in the eye. We’re done with the screaming and the biting and punching and fatigue; but we’re still fighting.

We walk down the streets, when we dare, with out chins held up high because there is a gun at ever corner, every shadow. What better way to face death than look it in the eye?

What better way to see the world?

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AN: Wrote it for a monologue that never happened, back when I thought about actually acting in drama club.