I dreamed that the pistol soaked into my arm, that the metal ran up to my heart and then from my opening mouth fell words not as sound but text; it was every good thing my mama ever taught me, falling out to the cold icy floor.
The pistol was a few ounces of cowardice. It was a cheap way to take something as sacred as Gavin's life. He had hid behind a garbage container, his cold sweat hidden in the stink of the rotting carcasses within.
They could feed the poor or by pistols to shoot them with when they rioted for food, or became so drug-addled as to loose their humanity. But who lost their soul first?
The pistols lay on the icy sidewalk in some dog-eared old box. They were loosely piled in, thrown really, with as much care as the bodies of their victims. I always imagined that they fired out of both ends - a real bullet to the victim and one of invisible soul-poison for the shooter.
I bought my knives to cut dinners and birthday cake, but this pistol? It's made for death and there's no way around that.