The Blessing
Notes from the mountaintop...
It clicked up against his front upper teeth. He could taste the metal. His trembling exhaust from his nostrils lifted the salty taste of gunpowder to his pallet. His hand shook as he hooked his finger around the curve of the trigger. Convinced, he knew that it would be quick. Visits to the morgue and calls to suicide scenes in his shit-hole of a cross-border town confirmed it. As he tightened his stomach, slowly lowered his eyelids, David squeezed his index finger on the trigger of his service revolver deliberately towards his fist. The cylinder rotated and the hammer slapped. His head jerked back, eyes fully closed. But dead silence echoed.
It clicked up against his front upper teeth. He could taste the metal. His trembling exhaust from his nostrils lifted the salty taste of gunpowder to his pallet. His hand shook as he hooked his finger around the curve of the trigger. Convinced, he knew that it would be quick. Visits to the morgue and calls to suicide scenes in his shit-hole of a cross-border town confirmed it. As he tightened his stomach, slowly lowered his eyelids, David squeezed his index finger on the trigger of his service revolver deliberately towards his fist. The cylinder rotated and the hammer slapped. His head jerked back, eyes fully closed. But dead silence echoed.
A tear slid down his left cheek from the corner of his eye
and he pitched the Smith & Wesson .38 across the room sailing into the
dresser mirror shattering it. Disgusted, he screamed out “Fuck! I can’t even do
this right!” He rolled into a seated ball and began to sob deeply.
Wailing unhinged parts inside that were bound tightly.
He rolled onto the dirt floor of his 30 peso Mexican border town motel room
that he rented for the day. Convulsive gasps rattled him as he wept for hours balled
up into a fetal position.
As the southwest sun lowered its stark afternoon -- peering through
stained curtains into a more forgiving early evening light. He lifted his
snotty face and peered through swollen eyes at the pistol laying on the floor across the
room. In a swirl of disappointment and relief, he gazed at the revolver for a
seeming eternity. Oddly, thoughts about a Buddhist saying repeated: “I come
from brilliance. I’ll return to brilliance. What is this?”
There are particular times when grace forgives us of our individual
transgressions. These are personal moments of blessings.
(c) Ronald D. McFarland, Highervista.com, CowboyHaiku.com 2005-2013
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