Trigger warnings: Language, violence + violence and language
And fueled by his righteous beliefs, he shot the security guard in the back of the head as the man, shaped like a sloth and wearing a baggy uniform, tried to crawl away.
The guard’s sleeves had already painted the floor with two long red brush strokes; artistic, geometrically perfect arcs like a road destined to become an insignia for a flag to hoist over the halls of this corrupt government.
Watching the sloth attempt to crawl away, Dawson imagined a billowing white flag in tempest winds adorned with these same red brush strokes, the pattern now inlaid upon the floor tiles by an unwitting working-class hero, a dying security guard whose sacrifice could remain a symbol of a revolution he was unable to understand through no fault of his own.
The guard was a warrior, not a sloth, but not for the enemy. He was an unheralded hero of the revolution, taking a bullet for the cause, gasping, wheezing his last breaths before being properly euthanized, surely unaware that his anonymous stain on the bank floor was virtuous, noble, immutably pure.
The final bullet silenced the guard’s body with a shudder. The artisan’s work was complete. A cleaning crew would annihilate it, but it would live on in a flag of remembrance and honor.
“You’re in one of your catatonic states,” said Myra, who was sitting on the floor next to Dawson. They were alone, aside from the dead guard and other scattered corpses. The hostages were imprisoned in a meeting room with Stu, which meant their chances for survival were about fifty-fifty, even if their most threatening challenge was a loud cough or sneeze.
Dawson looked at her and wiped at a streak of blood on her cheek, then ran his knuckle along a lock of red hair that had escaped her headscarf with a long, looping curl that suggested it wanted back in.
When he pushed the streak of blood as if on a fingerpainting, he uncovered the primary freckle, the leader of the crowded nest that filled her cheeks. Her headscarf, emblazoned with huge capitalized letters spelling “PINK,” was a context lovers' delight to Dawson, who never asked what the lettering referred to.
“What are you doing, goofy-ass?” she asked with a smile that revealed two large front teeth, the left one chipped long ago by another boyfriend.
“Admiring,” he smiled back.
The cacophony of sirens had given way to a man with a bullhorn, which neither of them had mentioned, much less responded to. The police knew this was a hostage situation. They were only now beginning to gather. There was little they would try to do for now.
“Remember our cat?” he asked Myra.
“Yeah. We’re digging quarters out of the couch for a few potatoes, and you want an expensive cat.”
Dawson snapped a few photos of the dead guard and posted them. “Yeah. Wasn’t just a cat. It was a Maine Coon.”
“Fabulous. She was a goddess. But there were times I thought we were gonna have to eat her.”
“She was like, an insurance policy.”
Myra smacked Dawson’s arm. “I wish you didn’t shoot that guy.”
“He was gonna die, babe. No way he survives those wounds. I did him a solid.”
“I mean the first time.” Her long lashes nearly covered eyes that shared the colors of the carefully sculpted boxwoods in front of their apartment building. They extended transient moments into longer ones not meant to end.
Nobody had ever affected him like this. Nobody had ever said, just through the flit of an eyelash, “Come with me, to forever.”
“No choice. Me or him.”
“I know. I was just hoping for a cleaner operation.”
When Dawson shrugged, he could feel a different splotch of blood on his tight Rolling Stones T-shirt press its cold memory of this day against his skin. “What did Sun Tzu say about war?”
“I dunno, babe. Who is Sun Zoo?”
“Wrote a book called ‘The Art of War’ or something like that.”
“Oh. What did he say?”
“Not sure. But I know I’ve heard someone say that nothing goes according to plan in war.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess.”
Dawson grasped her chin between his index finger and thumb. The man with the bullhorn was still trying to get their attention. “You knew going in, right? I mean, we talked about this.”
“Shit, Daw, it was my idea. We need the money. We need more guns. People are countin’ on us. It’s just, you know.”
Dawson let go and kissed her quickly on the lips. “I know. We all have our role to play. You’re the brains of the operation, I’m the guns.” He tried to smile, but he didn’t like to because his teeth were yellow and crooked. He shook a lock of his long brown hair by throwing his head back.
He remembered overhearing a girl in high school saying to her friend, “He’s cute, but he’s got bad teeth.” Her friend then said something indiscernibly tantalizing about muscles and the cross tattoo on his neck.
“I’m sorry,” Myra said.
“For what?”
“How this went down. I don’t think we should have brought Stu. I thought maybe he’d add some, I dunno, terror into the situation, and people would do what we told them to do. Stupid.” Her palm slapped the floor.
“One thing about Stu. He always brings terror into a situation.”
“Yeah. He’s pretty reliably terrible.”
“We couldn’t try this ourselves.”
“I know. Do you think the driver is dead?”
“Hmmm. Lemme think. Lots of sirens. Then gunfire. Then silence. Then an asshole with a bullhorn. Yeah. He’s dead.”
“Maybe he got away,” said Myra hopefully.
“Better than we’re gonna do.”
“Maybe the pics will make us martyrs.”
Dawson thought about the flag. “That’s the idea.”
“We’re like Bonnie and Clyde.”
“They didn’t have no cause. Nothin’ like this.”
“Weren’t they like Robin Hood a little?”
“Just the robbin’ part, babe.”
“Oh.”
The bullhorn man was beginning to sound exasperated. Then, suddenly, he went quiet.
“They comin’ now?” thought Myra out loud.
“Nah. They can’t know what’s happening inside yet. They don’t wanna kill all them people. Dude just prolly needs a throat lozenge from all his fuckin’ bellerin’.”
“Stu’s got a twitchy finger,” said Myra. “He’ll do all the killin’ for them.”
“They’ll figure on that. They don’t know Stu like we do, but they’ll know enough to not come in shootin’.”
“They don’t know Stu at all. They can’t know who any of us are. Shit, this sucks. Maybe we should give ourselves up, Daw.”
“We can if you want to. I ain’t gonna be like one of those pricks in a TV movie that yells at his babe for wanting to give up.”
“They’ll torture us and shit to get names. I ain’t doin’ that, Daw.”
Daw surprised himself by feeling a tear trying to squirm out the corner of his eye. “We can try to shoot our way out of this, but our odds ain’t great. In fact, maybe less than zero.”
“I mostly just don’t want Stu to shoot all them people.”
“Yeah. I guess I’ll need to go in there and shoot Stu. I don’t know another way.”
“Fuck. Why’d I suggest Stu?”
“He did fine in the other two.”
“No, babe, he freaked me the hell out then, too. I’m an idiot. This was bound to happen sometime. Fuck!”
“So should I do it?”
“What?” Myra exclaimed. “Shoot Stu?”
“Yeah.”
“He’ll probably just rise up from the dead and bite you on the neck.”
Dawson laughed at that. No wonder he loved this girl.
“I mean, I don’t wanna, right? Shit. You’re the dumbass? I’m the dumbass, babe. I could have covered the hostages. I just didn’t want to leave you alone here with Stu.”
Myra spoke quietly. “I didn’t want you to, either.”
Dawson jumped up. “Be right back.”
“Babe, no.”
Dawson looked at her, shook a lock out of his face, and walked towards the room where Stu was holding the hostages.
When he came back a few minutes later, Myra was sobbing. He sat down next to her and put his arm around her, which prompted her to lean her head on his shoulders. “It’s done,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said within the remains of one final sob. “I heard. Wait. You left the hostages in the room? By themselves?”
“It’s a big ass metal door. I took all their key cards. It’s a weird door. Locks from both sides. They’re not getting out. Not before the cops get here, at least.”
“Fuck me,” Myra sniffled. They were both quiet for what felt like an hour to Dawson. Finally, Myra said, “I heard a lot of screaming in there after you shot him.”
Dawson shrugged. “Turns out people don’t like guns as much as they think they do.”
“When this is over, can we go to that cabin like we promised each other we’d do?”
“Which one?” asked Dawson.
“You know, that one. It changes. But it’s always the same place. Just you and me.”
“And maybe a Maine Coon cat.”
Notes
I’m usually inspired by something I read. This time, it’s a couple of movies. One, “One Battle after Another,” which is now streaming on HBO or whatever they’re calling it these days. “One Battle after Another” is based on a Thomas Pynchon novel, “Vineland,” which I have not read. But he’s one of my favorite writers. His short story, “Entropy,” inspired this short story I wrote, although it’s very different in all ways but one:
The Box
This story was inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s short story, Entropy, only in the sense that I thought a mysterious series of same-degree days would be a neat fit in a climate change story. Once I decided to start writing it, the story wrote itself. I hope you enjoy.
The other inspiration for this short story was “Civil War,” which was produced by an interesting and growing independent film studio called A24, most famous for “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
Revolution is an easy thing for some to pay homage to, but it’s not a very good answer if you care about death, dying, and peace. The human toll begins as soon as revolution begins.
As always, thank you for reading!
“Turns out people don’t like guns as much as they think they do.”
Isn't it ironic? I guess gun-loving depends on the context. 😁
I enjoyed this story.
I was told that "Civil War" was a very bad film, and that I should not bother. If it inspired you, perhaps I should give it a chance?