Falling Asleep

He placed the cigarette securely between his lips as he turned the silver revolver over in his hands, and a moment later he swung out the cylinder and placed the gun in one hand as he reached into his pocket with the other and pulled out a small cardboard box. He opened it and held it between his knees and took a single bullet.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

With each chamber filled, he made sure the safety was on and tucked the revolver into the back pocket of his pants. He ashed his cigarette.

It was a suffocatingly hot summer day, and he could feel sweat trail down the back of his neck. Sitting on the hard, uncomfortable stairs of a dry, abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere, the dark-haired seventeen year old stared across the empty highway with dark eyes, scrutinizing the field of dead, golden cornstalks and realized his life fucking sucked.

Half an hour later, his cigarette had been spent and he began to light up another one. He was pretty sure he must list as pathetic by now; dirty and sweating and with the only items on his person being a—now empty—cigarette carton, a zippo lighter, and a loaded gun.

Another half hour of waiting passed, with the boy entertaining thoughts of setting the field he was staring at on fire, and finally a beaten, rusty gray car pulled to the side of the road and a man stepped out.

The teenager did not react, bringing his cigarette to his lips. The man intervened, standing in front of the boy now, and took the cylinder daintily from his fingers, finally earning a stare as the man took a drag then dropped the cigarette to the ground and stomped it out.

The boy pouted. There had been a good half centimeter left on that.

“C'mon.” The man said, his short, messy hair falling into his tired gray-with-yellow eyes, and offered a hand to the boy, “You're stuck with me, you know.”

The boy just sat there for a long moment, staring blankly at the ground before suddenly, slowly, running a hand through his hair.

“...Well fuck...” He muttered, his tone with something resembling a whine.

The man smiled gently, kindly, and finally the boy took his hand and was hefted to his feet. The kind man led the teenager to the car, fingers still slightly entwined all the while, and the boy slid into the passenger seat when the man opened the door for him, and a moment later the man had walked around the car and opened his own door and sat down and buckled his seatbelt. The car drove away.

The boy stared out the window at the boring, repetitive, soothing landscape, resting his forehead against the cool glass. He could still feel the smooth metal of the revolver pressing lightly into the flesh of his back.

It wasn't comforting in the least.

The boy decided he liked the country, with nothing for miles around. So calm... and lonely... In the country, no one knew anything about him...

He fell asleep.