Living For

Both of them wore a sign of surety on their faces, expressions of such fearlessness you’d have thought they were out of their minds. The fact that one of them had a gun to his head would have all but affirmed that notion.

"Why shouldn’t I?"

"I don’t know. Maybe you should."

The one with the dainty silver revolver scratched the side of his head with the barrel. He didn’t look a day over twenty-one, but the pockets around his wandering eyes gave evidence that his age hardly deterred the thirst for some nightly help from Jack.

"Yeah, I think I’ll do it."

"I think you should."

"Are you being sarcastic?"

"Why would I be sarcastic? I’m not that arrogant you know."

"I think you’re supposed to be telling me that it’s all going to be alright or something like that."

They were both smiling a strange, sadistic smile, as if they each knew something the other didn’t. The one without the gun slumped confidently in a crevasse in the couch, his arms slung carelessly over the top of the cushions adding an air of disinterest. He was the older-looking of the two, his well-groomed goatee, glasses, and smart blazer granting experience over the jeans and t-shirt that sat across from him. But they shared a distinctly youthful face, void of lines and age, which could have passed them off as classmates.

The gunman stared off at something on the ceiling and mumbled, "I wonder who would miss me."

"Your mom might miss you. And your sister."

"What about my dad?"

"Yeah, he would miss you too."

The younger-looking one brought his attention back to his company.

"It wouldn’t be fair to them. It would be pretty selfish."

"They would be upset. But it’s not their choice."

"What are you saying?"

"I’m just saying the obvious. It’s not up to them."

"It still wouldn’t be fair."

The man in the blazer shrugged. "Why should things be fair for them? It wasn’t fair for you."

Gazing back to the same spot on the ceiling, the gunman’s eyes became glossy and swollen and he refused to blink it away. He smirked, "No, no it wasn’t very fair." The hand that gripped his weapon began to tremble and he pressed the barrel into his skull to steady himself.

"It’s bullshit man."

"I know it is."

"I don’t want to do it man. I don’t want to do it. Just give me a reason not to. Just give me a reason not to," he uttered between clenched teeth. The pain was coming through his eyes now and he couldn’t remember how it felt to be calm again.

The man in the blazer took his arms off the cushions and leaned forward, placing his hands meticulously over his mouth as a sign of deep thought. But it only took a moment before he replied, "I don’t have a reason."

The gunman’s face had changed color now to scarlet, becoming distorted and repulsive. He let out a yelp. Then he looked around again, as if something above him could give an answer that the other man in the room couldn’t.

"I want another chance –" but he didn’t have time to finish the sentence before his face turned color again, flushing itself to white as he hurled on the floor. He looked up in sheer defeat, the sickness dripping from below his mouth, and into his lap. "Fuck dude." For the first time, he brought the gun down from the side of his head and plunged his eyes into his palms, rubbing them as dry as he could them. He repeated, this time with ferocity "Fuck dude!"

"What are you afraid of?"

"Because this is fucking it man. You don’t get to go back. And every time I try, I just see my whole life," he replied, just audible enough through his congested voice.

"What do you mean?"

"Everything. My parents and my girlfriend and all the people I knew. All those people I went to school with. God, when you’re little it just looks like it’s going to be easy."

"No, I guess it isn’t as easy as you thought it would be."

"I keep thinking of all those people."

"The people you’ve met throughout your life?"

"Yeah."

"You must mean a lot to them."

And then the younger one bolted upright and looked at his hands in disbelief. His eyes had gone wide and had become dry. Then with one lucid and sharp jerk of his arm, the gun was right back to where it had been, where it belonged. There was an explosion and the arm dropped as quickly as it had ascended, its owner hunched and vacant.

The man across from him did not flinch. He rose from his seat, buttoned his blazer, and made his exit, closing the door softly behind him.