pledge to fasting
Last night, a dream, in perfect clarity:
I am in a high-ceilinged room, entirely empty of furnishings except for a single chair I'm standing behind. There's something cold and smooth in my upraised hand. I know without looking that it's a pistol, high-quality and businesslike. I know, too, that I can use it.
I look across the room. Lined up against the opposite wall are people I know, although not well: I don't remember who they are, just that they're people I've never met more than in passing. They also have guns.
I look to my left and right. There are people on either side of me, and some of them are friends, and some of them I've never seen before. They are armed. Their guns are pointing at the people against the opposite wall, just as their guns are aimed at us. I know it's a standoff. There is only one door, and we cannot get out it, but neither can they. The math is simple: it is merely a question of who opens fire first.
There is no cover in the room, nothing to hide behind, except for that one, battered metal chair, which I am lucky enough to be behind. The walls are white. There is a Burberry carpet. It's a stupid place for a shootout.
I know there's some plan my side has made, that I'm supposed to wait, that some catalyst will be added to the mixture, that some signal will be given, and that many of us will die, but the plan is a good one, and we will take more lives than we will lose, and some of us might escape out the door alive. I know it's our best and only chance. I wonder if I should crouch down, to take better advantage of my pathetic defense. I'm a little frightened, but mostly I feel numb.
I look at the gun in my hand. I haul the muzzle up, point it at the man across from me with ease. I see his look of fear. I hear hands shift and fingers tighten on triggers, both on my side and theirs. Everyone thinks I'm going to be the first to start something.
I am.
I let go. The gun falls harmlessly on the carpet. I have no idea what reaction this causes in the man I was aiming at, no idea what stunned expressions my own friends are wearing, because I'm walking-- walking out, into the exact center of the room.
I sit down on the carpet, facing the opposite wall, and I bow, head dipping, palms and fingers placed against each other as though praying. Namaste. I turn 180 degrees, and namaste to my friends. I greet the place where you and I are one. Then I turn back again.
I don't remember what I look at for those long, agonizing minutes. Some point on the wall opposite. I am terrified, thinking that at any second I am going to die, going to feel a bullet slamming white-hot through my fragile tissue and smashing through my bones. I am calm. I am serene. And I want, desperately, to keep living.
A thunk. Rustle of cloth. Footsteps. Movement. Someone-- I think it is the man I almost shot-- sits down next to me, facing my friends. I don't turn my head, I don't move at all, but I almost cry just from the relief of having another human being there. With me. In the middle.
We wait.
Someone manages to catch my eye. She gives a tiny smile. She drops her gun. She sits on the other side of me, and looks back at her own side with steady brown eyes. My fear broken, I twine my fingers with hers, and take the hand of the man on my other side. They both give me a reassuring squeeze, but I'm not afraid anymore.
A friend of mine comes forward. I smile up at him. He shrugs a little helplessly, and sets his gun down, switches the safety on, and kicks it away.
And they come: one by one at first, with nervous defiance in their faces, then in pairs... and then it becomes almost a game: two people across from each other locking gazes, laying down their weapons, and coming forward to sit, in the middle, together. There is a joyous rush at the end, a jumble of people coming to sit wherever they like, a flurry of weapons being carefully set down or carelessly tossed aside... yet in the middle, I see something that turns my heart to stone.
There are six men and women in the middle who have come to sit, but have not given up their weapons. They have sectioned off, three against three, and are staring each other down in open hostility over the barrels of their guns.
Someone I don't even know follows my look of horror. He smiles at me, then stands, sure and steady, and taps my friend on the shoulder. He points. They have a brief discussion. Then they join hands and go and sit in the middle of a new conflict.
All my fear comes rushing back. It is harder, so much harder, to stand by and watch someone else between crosshairs. Then one of the people with guns, a boy not much older than me, starts to smile. Then to snort. Then to chuckle. Then to howl. The woman next to him says something harsh, not taking her eyes off of her target. He replies with something cutting through the giggles, and the standoff dissolves into laughter. The woman struggles to maintain her scowl for a moment, but her mouth cracks, reluctantly, and a grin escapes.
The boy picks up his pistol and takes the rounds out of their chamber. He flicks them into a corner, like marbles, and tosses his weapon away.
I am in a high-ceilinged room, entirely empty of furnishings except for a single chair I'm standing behind. There's something cold and smooth in my upraised hand. I know without looking that it's a pistol, high-quality and businesslike. I know, too, that I can use it.
I look across the room. Lined up against the opposite wall are people I know, although not well: I don't remember who they are, just that they're people I've never met more than in passing. They also have guns.
I look to my left and right. There are people on either side of me, and some of them are friends, and some of them I've never seen before. They are armed. Their guns are pointing at the people against the opposite wall, just as their guns are aimed at us. I know it's a standoff. There is only one door, and we cannot get out it, but neither can they. The math is simple: it is merely a question of who opens fire first.
There is no cover in the room, nothing to hide behind, except for that one, battered metal chair, which I am lucky enough to be behind. The walls are white. There is a Burberry carpet. It's a stupid place for a shootout.
I know there's some plan my side has made, that I'm supposed to wait, that some catalyst will be added to the mixture, that some signal will be given, and that many of us will die, but the plan is a good one, and we will take more lives than we will lose, and some of us might escape out the door alive. I know it's our best and only chance. I wonder if I should crouch down, to take better advantage of my pathetic defense. I'm a little frightened, but mostly I feel numb.
I look at the gun in my hand. I haul the muzzle up, point it at the man across from me with ease. I see his look of fear. I hear hands shift and fingers tighten on triggers, both on my side and theirs. Everyone thinks I'm going to be the first to start something.
I am.
I let go. The gun falls harmlessly on the carpet. I have no idea what reaction this causes in the man I was aiming at, no idea what stunned expressions my own friends are wearing, because I'm walking-- walking out, into the exact center of the room.
I sit down on the carpet, facing the opposite wall, and I bow, head dipping, palms and fingers placed against each other as though praying. Namaste. I turn 180 degrees, and namaste to my friends. I greet the place where you and I are one. Then I turn back again.
I don't remember what I look at for those long, agonizing minutes. Some point on the wall opposite. I am terrified, thinking that at any second I am going to die, going to feel a bullet slamming white-hot through my fragile tissue and smashing through my bones. I am calm. I am serene. And I want, desperately, to keep living.
A thunk. Rustle of cloth. Footsteps. Movement. Someone-- I think it is the man I almost shot-- sits down next to me, facing my friends. I don't turn my head, I don't move at all, but I almost cry just from the relief of having another human being there. With me. In the middle.
We wait.
Someone manages to catch my eye. She gives a tiny smile. She drops her gun. She sits on the other side of me, and looks back at her own side with steady brown eyes. My fear broken, I twine my fingers with hers, and take the hand of the man on my other side. They both give me a reassuring squeeze, but I'm not afraid anymore.
A friend of mine comes forward. I smile up at him. He shrugs a little helplessly, and sets his gun down, switches the safety on, and kicks it away.
And they come: one by one at first, with nervous defiance in their faces, then in pairs... and then it becomes almost a game: two people across from each other locking gazes, laying down their weapons, and coming forward to sit, in the middle, together. There is a joyous rush at the end, a jumble of people coming to sit wherever they like, a flurry of weapons being carefully set down or carelessly tossed aside... yet in the middle, I see something that turns my heart to stone.
There are six men and women in the middle who have come to sit, but have not given up their weapons. They have sectioned off, three against three, and are staring each other down in open hostility over the barrels of their guns.
Someone I don't even know follows my look of horror. He smiles at me, then stands, sure and steady, and taps my friend on the shoulder. He points. They have a brief discussion. Then they join hands and go and sit in the middle of a new conflict.
All my fear comes rushing back. It is harder, so much harder, to stand by and watch someone else between crosshairs. Then one of the people with guns, a boy not much older than me, starts to smile. Then to snort. Then to chuckle. Then to howl. The woman next to him says something harsh, not taking her eyes off of her target. He replies with something cutting through the giggles, and the standoff dissolves into laughter. The woman struggles to maintain her scowl for a moment, but her mouth cracks, reluctantly, and a grin escapes.
The boy picks up his pistol and takes the rounds out of their chamber. He flicks them into a corner, like marbles, and tosses his weapon away.