Ready. Aim. Rant.

"Guns make us powerful; butter will only make us fat."
- Nazi Hermann Goering

It never fails.

You walk into a crowded mall one afternoon and you just can't decide who to shoot.

What a dilemma.

You went to all this trouble of buying an assault weapon, fully automatic with a generous-sized magazine, even spent hours at the firing range getting used to the heft and the kick of your .32 caliber friend, and now your mind is wracked with uncertainty and doubt. Every face you look at reminds you of people you know and love but not the ones who really deserve the liberal application of a little hot, fiery wisdom. You're mostly annoyed because the ones you really need to be scaring the piss out of right about now are all back at the office, talking about you, laughing at you. But security is too tight there. And so the mall.

Oh, well... sacrifices have to be made, you remind yourself for the fortieth time since you got off the bus.

You stand at the foot of the escalator, the gun wrapped in newspaper in the Macy's shopping bag nestled between your Crocs. Mentally you're unwrapping it, casting aside the sports section, the style section, comics section. You can feel the heft of it in your hands, smell the lubricating oil, hear the snik of the cartridge as it snaps into the chamber, see the look of surprise on the faces of shoppers as you slowly, carefully draw a bead.

What? What was...?

Oh, god! The voices again. They come when the money is all gone, which means the medicine is all gone, too. The sound is like riding an elevator full of people only there's no people in this elevator. Just you. Usually they're quiet, breathy whispers keeping you awake at night, reminding you of things you forgot to do, or never will. Sometimes they're loud, insistent, like now. They're not happy voices.

It's the voices that got you this far, that convinced you to teach these bastards a lesson, but you're not sure anymore. It's not at all like they promised. They were wrong.

Indecision locks your muscles and you stand there for what seems like hours, sweat cascading down your back and into your shorts, past the crack of your ass and down into your groin before being wicked away by the fruit of a Chinese loom.

A hand touches your shoulder, startling you. A face appears, a question asked. Do you need help, son? Son? You say no. No, I'm fine and look down at your feet. In the sack the butt of the gun has ripped through the newspaper, splitting Mark Trail neatly in two. Yet he keeps smiling. You smile back. You like Mark Trail.

That's when you notice the quiet has returned. All you hear are people bustling past, cell phone chatter, babies babbling, announcements over the PA. But no voices.

Today is clearly not the day. No, not today. Not here.

You pick up your bag and totter towards the exit. The door opens and a rush of cool, conditioned air momentarily battles for supremancy against a blast of summer heat. Still holding the door a man brushes past you. He has a far-away look in his eyes, a Macy's bag in his hand and is sporting a really good looking pair of Crocs.

Time to go.

=mike=