On National Duty

The Players

The original of the carbon copy, which is I. Iron willed. Shy. Values, in person.

The sentimental. Soft. Knead-able.

The rich, lavish, hi-fi executive. Has an unfulfilled dream of becoming a teacher. Twenty years down, the dream will be unfulfilled for teaching is a bad paymaster.

He's unprepared. It isn't in the construct of normal beings to expect lead from stranger's pistols to pierce the life out of you in cold blood streams. It' s still under my shirt, on purpose, but I'm working up the courage. I don't like the angle. It's been done before; I think in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Were I to pump a little more disgust in me, the bullet in its invisible trajectory would circle the couple doing the twist, and splash, brilliant red, just above his shirt pocket, where Tommy Hilfiger advertises himself so unashamedly. I can empathize with snipers, who midway in their balance of accuracy and scarce time, are frustrated by some 'innocent' who, in his ignorance, walks right into the middle of the battlefield, and disturbs the sniper's tightrope walk. I'll have to wait a little longer before my target presents to my automatic the center of his forehead, wrinkled in evidence of all the slime plots he conjured up, to deserves what he'll get today. When time is ripe, justice shall find its keeper deliver to him the judgment he had invited.

I turn my attention to the sweating glass that has appeared magically before me, like a wish granted. Engrossed in my western, I hadn't noticed the bartender place his elixir as if secretly wishing me immortality. I displace the cubes from the cold comfort of the ice bucket, to the acid burn of poison tequila. I add more ice, lots of it, fill the shot to slush; it gives me time to introspect.

Each time I think, the picture-postcards of my life magnify in depress. Static, un-vibrant aids to memory, these snaps, erstwhile effervescent with fragile bubbles of promise, turn into shards with their newfound prick and question. I flip through. Laid bare, the hand I've played at life, I find jacks and kings of promise slaughtered in finesse. The good bridge player, the Introspector, I post-mortem with an acuteness and delight that makes me suspicious of the blood that runs in my veins - is it all ice and slush?

The slush begins to dissolve; the chill of its residue transports precise to my spine. It's melting orange a reminder of daybreak, in contrast to the dark of the night. Black is the safest, sartorially; my parents have always advised me. Unlike with people, with black, anything goes.