Learn to Aim
I don't know what the truth about the situation is anymore. I have what I believe; they have my villain origin story written down in stone. Etched, unable to be erased, and we now we are living in different multiverses. Different pages, different books, different lives.
I don't know who started the war. There's been so much bloodshed, tears cried, lives forever separated. A sticky spiderweb of a mess we made.
I know I get vindictive when I got hurt. Someone steps to me, all bets are off and I'll step right back at them.
But tonight I'm thinking about something my father once taught me. He was big into guns, but even more into gun safety. He told me over and over again that you always have to know what you're aiming at, because you can never take a bullet back. It's forever. It can ruin lives if you're not careful-- if you don't know what you're aiming at, if you don't take a moment to stop and think.
He had this one story to illustrate his point. It was back before I was born, when my parents and my two older sisters had this cute little puppy dog. My father woke up one night, hearing noises like someone was trying to break in at the front door. He got his gun out of the nightstand and moved his way through the house, getting ready for a fight so that he could protect his house and family. And just when he got to the front door, when his finger was on the trigger, the gun locked and loaded, he looked down the sights at their little dog making all that noise. Not a burglar, not a monster, not someone come to hurt them-- just a little puppy dog, sleeping too close to the front door while fast asleep. It's little back paws, banging on the door as it chased squirrel in its sleep. That small pause my father took was all that saved its life.
It's why my father told me so many times to know what I'm aiming it. Words and actions are like those bullets. Once it's done, it's done-- the cracks start, the universe changes.
I need to learn to aim.