Non Mea Culpa
Walking up the stairs to my new home, I dropped the HP handheld calculator I was carrying into a water puddle. "Shit," I exclaimed as I hurriedly snatched it up, hoping that my hand was quicker than any water which would be seeping into the device's innards. I shook the calculator briskly, and then wiped off any excess water on my pants leg.
I unlocked the door, and rushed to my computer desk, where I nervously shook the batteries out of the calculator, and continued to do my best to extract as much water from it as I could. I propped the calculator up against a shelf of my desk with the battery opening downward, so that any remaining droplets could drain out of it. Afterward, I absentmindedly checked my email and looked at Friendster to see if an anticipated message had arrived.
A loud knock on the door pulled my attention away from the computer, and I jogged into the front room to see who was there.
Looking through the door peephole I saw her, a girl who had been a friend for a long time, and who had often made advances on me but which I had always rejected. [This was a fictitious dream person.]
Although a little curious what had brought her by, I opened the door cheerfully.
"I've had enough!" she shouted, bowling me over as she stormed through the doorway.
I shook my head like a confused dog, the specific content of her continuing shouts not quite registering as I tried to take the entire situation in. Looking up, I couldn't ignore the appearance of a gun in her right hand, which she promptly pressed up against the side of my head, hurting me a little and pushing me to the side.
My heart jumped into my throat, and I found myself breathless with fear. I weakly tried to ask what was going on, but she continued to push me down onto the ground, shouting incoherently.
A tear ran down my cheek as I lifted my hands in surrender. "Please, please don't hurt me. We can work this out, whatever it is. Just let me know what you want."
"Down on your back!" she screamed. "Did I tell you to wait?!? No! On your back now!"
I rolled back the rest of the way onto the ground, and she pressed the gun forcefully into my mouth.
"This is for you!" she screamed, and I felt sure my time had come. Inexplicably, however, instead of firing the gun, she pulled it out of my mouth and stepped back. "What were you doing in there when I got here?"
"What?" I responded.
"At the computer! What were you doing in there?!?"
"Oh, I was trying to get the water out of my calculator, which I'd just dropped in a puddle," I said.
She looked at me quizzically. "You better not be fucking lying to me!"
"I'm not, I swear," I begged.
"Is that everything?"
"Oh, and I was checking email, too."
"I'm going to go see, and I better not find out you were lying!" She turned and walked into the other room. I heard her shuffling around the computer desk for a moment, and I contemplated my situation.
"Oh shit!" I muttered to myself. "Friendster was up, too! I hope she doesn't . . . I . . . Does that count as lying? Oh, no."
I waited on the floor, shaking and afraid to move until she returned.
"Okay," she said, walking back into the room, holding the gun loosely, but we're going to finish this off now. Take your clothes off!"
"All of them I asked?"
"No questions!" she shouted. "All of them. No sudden moves!"
I sat up awkwardly, with my hands far out to my sides, and then slowly removed my shoes, one at a time. Then my socks, T-shirt, and jeans. Sitting there only in my boxers I looked up at her. She nodded, waving the gun at me, so I took those off, too, and sat there cross-legged on the floor awaiting further instruction.
Seemingly from nowhere she produced a length of brown cord and began tying my feet together. She was having difficulty juggling the gun while accomplishing this, and, sensing an opportunity, I did my best to swallow my fear, and I reached for the gun. Her grip tightened, and she started shouting incoherently again, I unable to hear for the deafening roar of the sound of blood pounding in my ears.
In an effort to distract me she wrapped the loose end of the cord around my genitals and began to pull, but in the meantime I had managed to rotate the gun in her hands until it pointed vaguely at the head of hair I felt scraping above my left shoulder. I spidered one hand over to the trigger, and pushed forcefully against it as I looked up to determine whether my aim was good, in case another shot was necessary.
A startlingly loud report was accompanied by the veritable explosion of blood from the girl's right eye, followed almost immediately by a spray of blood from the back of her head.
Astoundingly, she continued to struggle for the gun. My grip on the gun hadn't slipped, so I pushed against the trigger again. This time, the bullet hit her in the left eye, and she jumped back a bit, releasing the gun.
I jumped to my feet, and, in a fit of panic seeing her still standing, I shot her one last time in the belly. She fell to a sitting position against the wall, leaving a smear of blood and straight black hair down the white plaster.
The reality of what had just happened now hit me. Oh my God, I thought. I just killed a girl. Another human being. She's dead. In my front room. What do I do?
I glanced around the room, still frightened. I began walking toward the back room again, and paced around, still working out the situation in my head.
Wait, this was self defense, right? She came into my house. She attacked me. She was trying to kill me. With a gun, for Christ's sake.
A faint shuffling sound caught my attention. Someone at the door? What could it be? Caressing the gun between my shaking hands, I fearfully sidestepped into the doorway, viewing a little more of the front room with each step.
With one final turn, I was met with the view of the girl, standing full up on her feet, stumbling blindly toward me with her arms out in front of her. Blood streamed from her eye sockets down onto her white shirt, and her hair was all tousled.
Reacting in panic to this terrible and grotesque sight, I immediately fired another shot, this one catching the girl solidly in the neck, causing her whole body to flip backward and land with a sprawling thump on the hardwood floor. While making a sickening gurgling noise, she reached about with her arms, pulled herself toward the front room's bathroom door a few feet, and then, with a prodigious sigh, finally came to a rest.
Oh my god. Oh my god. I did it again. Oh my god. And she was defenseless this time. She was unarmed. And I shot her again. I mean, I was still scared. And she's the one who came after me, but I didn't have to do that. What was she going to do to me. What could she have done? I've got to stop. I can't keep. . . .
The gun. The gun. I can't be found holding this.
I looked down to find the gun still in my trembling hands. I examined it briefly. It was dark gray and heavy, and the steel still felt cool despite having been fired. the handle contained a clip, with at least a dozen small bullets still remaining.
I tossed it nervously onto the top of the dresser, where it clattered to a stop.
The police. I have to tell them. Soon. Or they'll think this was my fault. They have to believe she was the one who attacked me. Maybe if I call them quickly enough.
I grabbed for the phone, wondering for a moment what the phone number for the police was, then muttered several words of self-criticism as I dialed 911.
The other end rang twice as I waited impatiently. "Hello, I'm Sylvia, your 911 operator. Unfortunately I had jury duty today and was unable to find a stand-in. I understand that you're probably calling with a dire emergency, and I apologize for that, but I'm currently not available. However, if you'll leave a message with the details of your emergency, I'll get back to you as soon as I can, most likely on Monday morning. Thank you."
I hung up. I didn't even know what to think. Trying the only thing I knew, I dialed again.
Busy signal.
I tossed the cordless phone handset on the bed in frustration, and put on a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt I found nearby. I then picked up the phone again, and the pistol, and headed toward the back door.
I briefly considered the impression I would make on passersby emerging from my house with a pistol in my hand, so I tucked it carefully into the back of my jeans.
Still barefoot, and a bit desperate, I nevertheless ran out my back door into a hilly urban park behind my house. I ran up a set of concrete steps to the top of a small hill, and sat down on a concrete bench.
The gun poked harshly into my back, and I jumped back up and cautiously pulled it out of my pants, making sure not to let the trigger catch on anything.
This is dangerous. What if I accidentally shot someone? Or myself? Oh my god.
I turned the gun over in my hands looking for a safety switch. I found a protrusion on one side labeled "SAFETY," but the switch was part of the barrel, and didn't seem to actually move. Examining the rest of the gun, the only moving parts I could identify were the trigger and the catch which released the bullet clip.
The bullets. I'll take the bullets out. That's it.
I released the clip which popped out solidly into my other hand. I shook the clip firmly, attempting to extract the bullets. When they didn't move, I started removing them one at a time with my shaking fingers.
Suddenly finding myself with a handful of 16 or so small bullets, I looked up and saw a friend coming up the concrete steps with his father.
"Matt, is that you?"
"Yes."
"Are you okay?"
"No, no I'm not," I answered, attempting to hide the gun and handful of bullets behind my back until I'd explained the situation. "I was attacked. She had a gun. She. . . ."
"Are you alright then? Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm not. But I shot her. In self-defense. I think she's dead. I think. Oh my god, I don't know what to do. I. . . ."
Nervously I squatted down and resumed my previous task of dispensing with the bullets while continuing to explain the situation as best as I could. Impulsively, I rolled the bullets out onto the edge of the sidewalk near a flower bed. Almost immediately the bullets rolled off across the soil and under a hedge.
"Oh no!" I shouted. "I can't lose those!"
My friend squatted down and started helping me retrieve the cold brass cylinders from the soft dirt. "It's okay, Matt. It's okay. I'm helping. It'll be okay."
My friend now stood in front of me, holding a loose mix of soil and bullets, and, with the situation back somewhat under control again, my mind once more began to race.
Four shots. Four bullets. Who the hell shoots someone FOUR TIMES in self-defense? They're never going to believe me. They'll never.
"Where is she? The girl?"
"I shot her. Four times. I shot her four times. How did that happen? I shot her once, and she just kept coming, and I shot her again. And she wouldn't stop. She wouldn't stop."
"It's okay. It's okay."
At that point, I noticed another friend walking in my direction, having seen me standing there. When he started getting close, my friend with the bullets ran up to him, and quickly summed up the situation for him.
Meanwhile, I crumpled back down onto the bench, my head in my hands, and I cried. The sense of hopelessness was overwhelming.
"Have you called the police?" I heard my newly arrived friend asking.
"No. He said he tried, but he couldn't get through. He's worried, though, that if it takes too long, they'll blame him."
"Let me see the phone, then. I'll see if I can get through."
They took the phone from the bench where I'd unconsciously laid it down earlier, and he paced off onto the grass. Before too long I could see him talking quietly, but couldn't hear anything being said. After a couple of moments, the way he looked down at the street and pointed as he talked led me to believe he was probably giving the police directions.
Oh my god, what will they think about all this? This is crazy. They're going to think I just killed her. They're going to think I did this. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.
"They said they'd be here in a few minutes. Let's go back to the house. Do you want to show me where this happened?"
"I don't know if I can do this," I answered.
"We need to go back, to let them in," he said. "Come on, it'll be okay."
We walked back to the house and walked into the back door I'd left hanging open.
From here I could already spot the smear of blood where the girl had last fallen.
"Oh my god," I said. "She's not there!"
"What do you mean?"
"She's gone! She was right there." I pointed. "She was . . . . Oh, no. She was dead. She had to be. Oh no."
The room started spinning as the panic made my pulse rate rise, and I couldn't breathe. What will they think when they see all this, and she's not here? What will they do? What can I do? Or . . . what if she's still here? What if she comes after me again? I can't shoot her. Not again. Not again. Or did she . . . maybe she crawled off into the bathroom and died in there? Oh, no. I can't look. I can't go looking for her. I can't handle this. This is too much. Too much.
The room whipped into a final quick spin as I blacked out and tumbled to the floor.
I unlocked the door, and rushed to my computer desk, where I nervously shook the batteries out of the calculator, and continued to do my best to extract as much water from it as I could. I propped the calculator up against a shelf of my desk with the battery opening downward, so that any remaining droplets could drain out of it. Afterward, I absentmindedly checked my email and looked at Friendster to see if an anticipated message had arrived.
A loud knock on the door pulled my attention away from the computer, and I jogged into the front room to see who was there.
Looking through the door peephole I saw her, a girl who had been a friend for a long time, and who had often made advances on me but which I had always rejected. [This was a fictitious dream person.]
Although a little curious what had brought her by, I opened the door cheerfully.
"I've had enough!" she shouted, bowling me over as she stormed through the doorway.
I shook my head like a confused dog, the specific content of her continuing shouts not quite registering as I tried to take the entire situation in. Looking up, I couldn't ignore the appearance of a gun in her right hand, which she promptly pressed up against the side of my head, hurting me a little and pushing me to the side.
My heart jumped into my throat, and I found myself breathless with fear. I weakly tried to ask what was going on, but she continued to push me down onto the ground, shouting incoherently.
A tear ran down my cheek as I lifted my hands in surrender. "Please, please don't hurt me. We can work this out, whatever it is. Just let me know what you want."
"Down on your back!" she screamed. "Did I tell you to wait?!? No! On your back now!"
I rolled back the rest of the way onto the ground, and she pressed the gun forcefully into my mouth.
"This is for you!" she screamed, and I felt sure my time had come. Inexplicably, however, instead of firing the gun, she pulled it out of my mouth and stepped back. "What were you doing in there when I got here?"
"What?" I responded.
"At the computer! What were you doing in there?!?"
"Oh, I was trying to get the water out of my calculator, which I'd just dropped in a puddle," I said.
She looked at me quizzically. "You better not be fucking lying to me!"
"I'm not, I swear," I begged.
"Is that everything?"
"Oh, and I was checking email, too."
"I'm going to go see, and I better not find out you were lying!" She turned and walked into the other room. I heard her shuffling around the computer desk for a moment, and I contemplated my situation.
"Oh shit!" I muttered to myself. "Friendster was up, too! I hope she doesn't . . . I . . . Does that count as lying? Oh, no."
I waited on the floor, shaking and afraid to move until she returned.
"Okay," she said, walking back into the room, holding the gun loosely, but we're going to finish this off now. Take your clothes off!"
"All of them I asked?"
"No questions!" she shouted. "All of them. No sudden moves!"
I sat up awkwardly, with my hands far out to my sides, and then slowly removed my shoes, one at a time. Then my socks, T-shirt, and jeans. Sitting there only in my boxers I looked up at her. She nodded, waving the gun at me, so I took those off, too, and sat there cross-legged on the floor awaiting further instruction.
Seemingly from nowhere she produced a length of brown cord and began tying my feet together. She was having difficulty juggling the gun while accomplishing this, and, sensing an opportunity, I did my best to swallow my fear, and I reached for the gun. Her grip tightened, and she started shouting incoherently again, I unable to hear for the deafening roar of the sound of blood pounding in my ears.
In an effort to distract me she wrapped the loose end of the cord around my genitals and began to pull, but in the meantime I had managed to rotate the gun in her hands until it pointed vaguely at the head of hair I felt scraping above my left shoulder. I spidered one hand over to the trigger, and pushed forcefully against it as I looked up to determine whether my aim was good, in case another shot was necessary.
A startlingly loud report was accompanied by the veritable explosion of blood from the girl's right eye, followed almost immediately by a spray of blood from the back of her head.
Astoundingly, she continued to struggle for the gun. My grip on the gun hadn't slipped, so I pushed against the trigger again. This time, the bullet hit her in the left eye, and she jumped back a bit, releasing the gun.
I jumped to my feet, and, in a fit of panic seeing her still standing, I shot her one last time in the belly. She fell to a sitting position against the wall, leaving a smear of blood and straight black hair down the white plaster.
The reality of what had just happened now hit me. Oh my God, I thought. I just killed a girl. Another human being. She's dead. In my front room. What do I do?
I glanced around the room, still frightened. I began walking toward the back room again, and paced around, still working out the situation in my head.
Wait, this was self defense, right? She came into my house. She attacked me. She was trying to kill me. With a gun, for Christ's sake.
A faint shuffling sound caught my attention. Someone at the door? What could it be? Caressing the gun between my shaking hands, I fearfully sidestepped into the doorway, viewing a little more of the front room with each step.
With one final turn, I was met with the view of the girl, standing full up on her feet, stumbling blindly toward me with her arms out in front of her. Blood streamed from her eye sockets down onto her white shirt, and her hair was all tousled.
Reacting in panic to this terrible and grotesque sight, I immediately fired another shot, this one catching the girl solidly in the neck, causing her whole body to flip backward and land with a sprawling thump on the hardwood floor. While making a sickening gurgling noise, she reached about with her arms, pulled herself toward the front room's bathroom door a few feet, and then, with a prodigious sigh, finally came to a rest.
Oh my god. Oh my god. I did it again. Oh my god. And she was defenseless this time. She was unarmed. And I shot her again. I mean, I was still scared. And she's the one who came after me, but I didn't have to do that. What was she going to do to me. What could she have done? I've got to stop. I can't keep. . . .
The gun. The gun. I can't be found holding this.
I looked down to find the gun still in my trembling hands. I examined it briefly. It was dark gray and heavy, and the steel still felt cool despite having been fired. the handle contained a clip, with at least a dozen small bullets still remaining.
I tossed it nervously onto the top of the dresser, where it clattered to a stop.
The police. I have to tell them. Soon. Or they'll think this was my fault. They have to believe she was the one who attacked me. Maybe if I call them quickly enough.
I grabbed for the phone, wondering for a moment what the phone number for the police was, then muttered several words of self-criticism as I dialed 911.
The other end rang twice as I waited impatiently. "Hello, I'm Sylvia, your 911 operator. Unfortunately I had jury duty today and was unable to find a stand-in. I understand that you're probably calling with a dire emergency, and I apologize for that, but I'm currently not available. However, if you'll leave a message with the details of your emergency, I'll get back to you as soon as I can, most likely on Monday morning. Thank you."
I hung up. I didn't even know what to think. Trying the only thing I knew, I dialed again.
Busy signal.
I tossed the cordless phone handset on the bed in frustration, and put on a pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt I found nearby. I then picked up the phone again, and the pistol, and headed toward the back door.
I briefly considered the impression I would make on passersby emerging from my house with a pistol in my hand, so I tucked it carefully into the back of my jeans.
Still barefoot, and a bit desperate, I nevertheless ran out my back door into a hilly urban park behind my house. I ran up a set of concrete steps to the top of a small hill, and sat down on a concrete bench.
The gun poked harshly into my back, and I jumped back up and cautiously pulled it out of my pants, making sure not to let the trigger catch on anything.
This is dangerous. What if I accidentally shot someone? Or myself? Oh my god.
I turned the gun over in my hands looking for a safety switch. I found a protrusion on one side labeled "SAFETY," but the switch was part of the barrel, and didn't seem to actually move. Examining the rest of the gun, the only moving parts I could identify were the trigger and the catch which released the bullet clip.
The bullets. I'll take the bullets out. That's it.
I released the clip which popped out solidly into my other hand. I shook the clip firmly, attempting to extract the bullets. When they didn't move, I started removing them one at a time with my shaking fingers.
Suddenly finding myself with a handful of 16 or so small bullets, I looked up and saw a friend coming up the concrete steps with his father.
"Matt, is that you?"
"Yes."
"Are you okay?"
"No, no I'm not," I answered, attempting to hide the gun and handful of bullets behind my back until I'd explained the situation. "I was attacked. She had a gun. She. . . ."
"Are you alright then? Are you hurt?"
"No, I'm not. But I shot her. In self-defense. I think she's dead. I think. Oh my god, I don't know what to do. I. . . ."
Nervously I squatted down and resumed my previous task of dispensing with the bullets while continuing to explain the situation as best as I could. Impulsively, I rolled the bullets out onto the edge of the sidewalk near a flower bed. Almost immediately the bullets rolled off across the soil and under a hedge.
"Oh no!" I shouted. "I can't lose those!"
My friend squatted down and started helping me retrieve the cold brass cylinders from the soft dirt. "It's okay, Matt. It's okay. I'm helping. It'll be okay."
My friend now stood in front of me, holding a loose mix of soil and bullets, and, with the situation back somewhat under control again, my mind once more began to race.
Four shots. Four bullets. Who the hell shoots someone FOUR TIMES in self-defense? They're never going to believe me. They'll never.
"Where is she? The girl?"
"I shot her. Four times. I shot her four times. How did that happen? I shot her once, and she just kept coming, and I shot her again. And she wouldn't stop. She wouldn't stop."
"It's okay. It's okay."
At that point, I noticed another friend walking in my direction, having seen me standing there. When he started getting close, my friend with the bullets ran up to him, and quickly summed up the situation for him.
Meanwhile, I crumpled back down onto the bench, my head in my hands, and I cried. The sense of hopelessness was overwhelming.
"Have you called the police?" I heard my newly arrived friend asking.
"No. He said he tried, but he couldn't get through. He's worried, though, that if it takes too long, they'll blame him."
"Let me see the phone, then. I'll see if I can get through."
They took the phone from the bench where I'd unconsciously laid it down earlier, and he paced off onto the grass. Before too long I could see him talking quietly, but couldn't hear anything being said. After a couple of moments, the way he looked down at the street and pointed as he talked led me to believe he was probably giving the police directions.
Oh my god, what will they think about all this? This is crazy. They're going to think I just killed her. They're going to think I did this. It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.
"They said they'd be here in a few minutes. Let's go back to the house. Do you want to show me where this happened?"
"I don't know if I can do this," I answered.
"We need to go back, to let them in," he said. "Come on, it'll be okay."
We walked back to the house and walked into the back door I'd left hanging open.
From here I could already spot the smear of blood where the girl had last fallen.
"Oh my god," I said. "She's not there!"
"What do you mean?"
"She's gone! She was right there." I pointed. "She was . . . . Oh, no. She was dead. She had to be. Oh no."
The room started spinning as the panic made my pulse rate rise, and I couldn't breathe. What will they think when they see all this, and she's not here? What will they do? What can I do? Or . . . what if she's still here? What if she comes after me again? I can't shoot her. Not again. Not again. Or did she . . . maybe she crawled off into the bathroom and died in there? Oh, no. I can't look. I can't go looking for her. I can't handle this. This is too much. Too much.
The room whipped into a final quick spin as I blacked out and tumbled to the floor.