(no subject)
Title: Taught to Run
Theme: Easy
Word Count: 1,254
It’s easy to fire a gun. Load it, unclick the safety, aim, fire. Nothing to it. Easy as pie. Even easier if someone’s already loaded it and unclicked the safety for you. Point and shoot. Child’s play. It certainly was for me.
At six, I got my name in the Guinness Book of World Records. Pretty good achievement, hey? You’d think so, but believe me, I ain’t putting it down on my resume. At six, I became the youngest person in recorded history to kill a person with a firearm.
Yeah. It’s not so great, is it? Especially considering a year or two later, a three year old broke my record. He had a better story, too. Saw his dad beating up his mum and decided to take care of business, television-style. I just . . . I don’t know what I just.
We had to move, afterwards. They kept my name out of the papers and off the evening news, but that’s not much help when everyone at school saw you do it, and had to be picked up by their parents, either in shocked silence or hysterical wailing.
I never went back to that school. That upset me, more than anything. God, that sounds fucking awful. But I was six, okay? I liked my teacher, Miss Darling. We were going to be learning about insects the next week. Miss Darling was one of those teachers who’s just designed to take twenty first graders out into the park to look at crickets. I remember smiles and soft hands.
I saw her in the supermarket, a week later. She froze, and then she walked the other way. My mother hurried us out not long after. We were getting stares.
I don’t blame Miss Darling. What would you think if the little boy you’d been teaching to spell ‘adventure’ brought a gun into school and shot the little girl whose shoelaces you always had to tie? She probably thought I was a monster. Everyone else did. Or that I was mentally damaged, or possessed, or just plain evil.
Really, I was just . . . Oh Jesus, how do you explain?
No one remembers me now. After we moved, we never went back. I went to another school, where only the principal and my teachers knew. They were very discreet, even if they did look at me a little warily. I’ve never told anyone about it.
For a few years, I wasn’t even aware of how terrible it was. I think I may have even forgotten about it. But then I wasn’t allowed first-person shooter computer games, and there were pinched lips and furrowed brows when I went to see action films. My musical tastes were monitored very carefully.
I left home as soon as I graduated. I didn’t go to college. Just jumped on a train and left the city. It seems fitting; all I’ve ever been brought up to do is run.
We moved to the city, and my mother got a new job. Just her and me, against the big bad world, in an apartment that smelt of smoke and beer (no matter how many times my mother scrubbed the walls). I missed my backyard, and the park down the street.
Sometimes I heard gunshots at night, and I woke up crying.
My mother did her best, I suppose. It’s bloody difficult bringing up a child alone, even without that child being a killer.
Yeah, I come from a single-parent background. Unfortunately, you can’t blame it on that. It’d probably make it easier, but no - it was my father’s gun. He . . . well, he wasn’t there afterwards.
I got on the train and I headed west to the sea. Not a single person knew who I was or what I’d done. And I thought I could pretend it never happened, but of course when you run away from a secret you just end up packing it in your suitcase (underneath your underwear) and bringing it with you anyway.
The thing is, my mother and I never spoke about it. The authorities wanted me to go to counselling and stuff like that, but my mother was persuasive and argued it would be better to just leave it. I was happy without it being raked up.
It’s true, I was. I got through school okay, and everything seemed fairly normal. But it was always there, sitting in the corner next to the television, or waiting under the bed like a childhood nightmare - you killed a girl you shot a person you killed a girl monster you caused blood and pain monster you killed a girl monster and someone’s dead monster because of you monster monster monster -
You get older and you can’t ignore that voice anymore. Especially when that voice is coming from your mother. Even though she won’t say a word on the matter.
So I left home, because I’d been taught to run.
I didn’t just kill that girl, that day. I killed someone else as well.
The gun was my father’s. He was . . . careless? stupid? overly secure? He left it out all the time. It was just a small handgun - I don’t know what type, I wasn’t exactly allowed to cultivate a passion for guns in my teenage years - he had it for ‘protection’. He would - well, he said he was cleaning it, but really, he was playing with it. Like some sort of phallic symbol. He would unload the clip and polish the gun and pretend to aim and fire it at random things around the house.
My mother hated it.
He would leave it out, too. He thought he left it high enough so I couldn’t reach.
Six year olds are more conniving than he gives - gave - them credit for.
What everyone wants to know, more than what and where and how, is why. Why on earth did I shoot her? What possessed me? Did I know what I was doing?
I was six. I’d seen television, I’d watched the news. I knew what guns were and what they did. I knew that it was a Bad Thing to shoot someone, and an Even Worse Thing to get shot.
But I was six. It was a Bad Thing to sneak biscuits before bed. It was an Even Worse Thing to run away from your mother at the park.
I can’t say whether I knew what I was doing. I knew it was naughty, but what six year old’s moral system can encompass the scope of death?
I brought the gun in for show and tell. Kirsty, the girl I ended up shooting, pushed me over and called me some playground insult. I don’t remember what. I got out the gun, and I pulled the trigger.
My father had left it loaded and the safety off.
My father hung himself two days later.
So I’m here, as far away from my secret as I can get without leaving the country, and the damn thing’s sitting inside my head telling me I’m a monster.
I can see Miss Darling turning away from me in the supermarket.
I can see the wary looks of my new teachers.
I can see my mother turning off the radio whenever a rap song comes on.
I can see Kirsty with blood all over her.
I can see my father with his tongue lolling out.
I can see the waves breaking on the shore.
I have always been taught to run.
Theme: Easy
Word Count: 1,254
It’s easy to fire a gun. Load it, unclick the safety, aim, fire. Nothing to it. Easy as pie. Even easier if someone’s already loaded it and unclicked the safety for you. Point and shoot. Child’s play. It certainly was for me.
At six, I got my name in the Guinness Book of World Records. Pretty good achievement, hey? You’d think so, but believe me, I ain’t putting it down on my resume. At six, I became the youngest person in recorded history to kill a person with a firearm.
Yeah. It’s not so great, is it? Especially considering a year or two later, a three year old broke my record. He had a better story, too. Saw his dad beating up his mum and decided to take care of business, television-style. I just . . . I don’t know what I just.
We had to move, afterwards. They kept my name out of the papers and off the evening news, but that’s not much help when everyone at school saw you do it, and had to be picked up by their parents, either in shocked silence or hysterical wailing.
I never went back to that school. That upset me, more than anything. God, that sounds fucking awful. But I was six, okay? I liked my teacher, Miss Darling. We were going to be learning about insects the next week. Miss Darling was one of those teachers who’s just designed to take twenty first graders out into the park to look at crickets. I remember smiles and soft hands.
I saw her in the supermarket, a week later. She froze, and then she walked the other way. My mother hurried us out not long after. We were getting stares.
I don’t blame Miss Darling. What would you think if the little boy you’d been teaching to spell ‘adventure’ brought a gun into school and shot the little girl whose shoelaces you always had to tie? She probably thought I was a monster. Everyone else did. Or that I was mentally damaged, or possessed, or just plain evil.
Really, I was just . . . Oh Jesus, how do you explain?
No one remembers me now. After we moved, we never went back. I went to another school, where only the principal and my teachers knew. They were very discreet, even if they did look at me a little warily. I’ve never told anyone about it.
For a few years, I wasn’t even aware of how terrible it was. I think I may have even forgotten about it. But then I wasn’t allowed first-person shooter computer games, and there were pinched lips and furrowed brows when I went to see action films. My musical tastes were monitored very carefully.
I left home as soon as I graduated. I didn’t go to college. Just jumped on a train and left the city. It seems fitting; all I’ve ever been brought up to do is run.
We moved to the city, and my mother got a new job. Just her and me, against the big bad world, in an apartment that smelt of smoke and beer (no matter how many times my mother scrubbed the walls). I missed my backyard, and the park down the street.
Sometimes I heard gunshots at night, and I woke up crying.
My mother did her best, I suppose. It’s bloody difficult bringing up a child alone, even without that child being a killer.
Yeah, I come from a single-parent background. Unfortunately, you can’t blame it on that. It’d probably make it easier, but no - it was my father’s gun. He . . . well, he wasn’t there afterwards.
I got on the train and I headed west to the sea. Not a single person knew who I was or what I’d done. And I thought I could pretend it never happened, but of course when you run away from a secret you just end up packing it in your suitcase (underneath your underwear) and bringing it with you anyway.
The thing is, my mother and I never spoke about it. The authorities wanted me to go to counselling and stuff like that, but my mother was persuasive and argued it would be better to just leave it. I was happy without it being raked up.
It’s true, I was. I got through school okay, and everything seemed fairly normal. But it was always there, sitting in the corner next to the television, or waiting under the bed like a childhood nightmare - you killed a girl you shot a person you killed a girl monster you caused blood and pain monster you killed a girl monster and someone’s dead monster because of you monster monster monster -
You get older and you can’t ignore that voice anymore. Especially when that voice is coming from your mother. Even though she won’t say a word on the matter.
So I left home, because I’d been taught to run.
I didn’t just kill that girl, that day. I killed someone else as well.
The gun was my father’s. He was . . . careless? stupid? overly secure? He left it out all the time. It was just a small handgun - I don’t know what type, I wasn’t exactly allowed to cultivate a passion for guns in my teenage years - he had it for ‘protection’. He would - well, he said he was cleaning it, but really, he was playing with it. Like some sort of phallic symbol. He would unload the clip and polish the gun and pretend to aim and fire it at random things around the house.
My mother hated it.
He would leave it out, too. He thought he left it high enough so I couldn’t reach.
Six year olds are more conniving than he gives - gave - them credit for.
What everyone wants to know, more than what and where and how, is why. Why on earth did I shoot her? What possessed me? Did I know what I was doing?
I was six. I’d seen television, I’d watched the news. I knew what guns were and what they did. I knew that it was a Bad Thing to shoot someone, and an Even Worse Thing to get shot.
But I was six. It was a Bad Thing to sneak biscuits before bed. It was an Even Worse Thing to run away from your mother at the park.
I can’t say whether I knew what I was doing. I knew it was naughty, but what six year old’s moral system can encompass the scope of death?
I brought the gun in for show and tell. Kirsty, the girl I ended up shooting, pushed me over and called me some playground insult. I don’t remember what. I got out the gun, and I pulled the trigger.
My father had left it loaded and the safety off.
My father hung himself two days later.
So I’m here, as far away from my secret as I can get without leaving the country, and the damn thing’s sitting inside my head telling me I’m a monster.
I can see Miss Darling turning away from me in the supermarket.
I can see the wary looks of my new teachers.
I can see my mother turning off the radio whenever a rap song comes on.
I can see Kirsty with blood all over her.
I can see my father with his tongue lolling out.
I can see the waves breaking on the shore.
I have always been taught to run.