eulogy 4
The gun came in a brown paper bag, signed and sealed, like a piece of him returned to me.
The same one I had tried to find, minutes before he found it first, hiding it from me like a secret too terrible to share.
Evidence, they called it, but I called it remains. Still wearing the dirt from where it fell. Still holding a splatter of his blood like a secret it refused to wash away.
I counted:
one live round, where four should have been.
He emptied the cylinder, left two.
One for me, One for himself.
Only one fired. The other waited. A survivor like me, sealed in brass.
It felt heavy, as if it knew what it had done. Looking face to face with his peacemaker. I held it like a relic, like maybe if I traced its weight, I could feel his final thought rolling inside the chamber.
So I lifted it.
Unloaded, yes.
I knew that it was, but my body trembled anyways. The cold barrel pressing a bitter sweetness against my teeth. I pulled the trigger and felt the silence explode inside me instead.
My jaw ached with the want of it. My pulse begged for symmetry. Some part of me wanted the world to echo evenly.
Nothing came out, not even air. Only his name ricocheting through my skull like a bullet that never exited.
I set it down. And for the first time, I understood: what he gave to the ground, the ground gave back to me.
Weight.
Dirt.
And the unbearable will to keep breathing.
713
Chloe