Afterthoughts

Have you ever thought about the effect of a bullet on the human body?  I mean, everyone has considered how they would be if weilding a gun.  Maybe even stoic, staring down the barrel - perhaps a quick and witty comment?  But next?  As a bullet tears through the body it makes this sound - almost a mix of tearing fabric and jelly dropping from a spoon.

 

But after that, when you're sat before the body of your fourteen year old brother.  When you can feel the blood soaking into your jeans - the metalic taste still in your mouth from the moment his abdomen seemed to explode.  This tiny little tube of metal creates a hole much bigger than itself; though everything appears much bigger after.  The sound isn't a far off pop, but a harrowing gong which reverberates through your head.  Even the weight of the gun - was never this heavy before.  Was it?  The weight that caused me to drop to my knees.  Into the blood - far more blood that could possibly have been in one child.  

 

I dragged his lifeless body over my legs - wondering where our closing scene had gone.  The declarations of love and forgiveness, the moments held tight to eachother - that's the way it happened right?  He shouldn't have just frozen like an old pc and dropped to the floor.  Initially, the guilt within clawed at the mercy of it - for I surely wouldn't have been able to take the look in his eyes and he stared into me, but as that guilt abated, making way for the spine crushing weight of sorrow and dread that now consumed me, I realised I didn't deserve the words of understanding or forgiveness anyway.  This was my fault and I should suffer for it.