Andrew Nagy

It was a dream I had, but unlike other dreams. Most dreams are fantastical, offering little semblance to reality, taking the dreamer to worlds unknown, characters unfathomable, and events of grand and unbelievable proportion. This was no such dream. The world is our own, the characters unfortunately known, and the event such as one might read in the news.

I was driving through suburbia to some unknown destination of mediocrity. I was happy in that way that all of America is happy. Mildly so. Suddenly behind me was a car, and in the car drove a man who seemed frightened. In the passenger seat was another man, leaning out the window. He carried a shotgun and was randomly firing at pedestrians and the drivers of other vehicles.

As I watched with horror, he shot wildly, seldomly hitting a target. When he did hit, it was gruesome. I was for the moment at a complete loss. Time slowed, as in waking life I imagine it would in a high stress situation. I haven’t had the opportunity to experience something like that, but I’ve heard about it in stories and personal accounts, so it must be fairly universal.

As time was at a near halt, I could see the car behind me, not following close, not moving to pass, simply there. The driver, too scared to know what to do perhaps, simply followed me. His passenger didn’t seem to care that they were cruising at a reasonable 35 miles an hour while he created chaos in middle-class America. I wondered at my choices. Should I pull over to the side of the road or take a side street? Should I speed up and try to get away? With the kind of certainty you regrettably only have in dreams I knew that if I tried to hide I would be followed.

I knew also that those ways were the ways of cowardice. Of escape. Of self preservation at the expense of life. The life of the elderly man walking not a quarter of a mile on the sidewalk ahead, still heedless to the coming danger.

Yet I still felt the need to escape or at least pull the attacker somewhere else. Still not knowing what to do I pulled into the parking lot of a donut shop. The car did not follow, as I had feared and hoped it would. The elderly man was still in danger. Still, there was not much I could do.

I needed to get out of my car. I did and entered the shop. Apparently, though I was unaware, the passenger had ceased shooting some time before the shop, and no one inside had the slightest idea of what was going on. I took a seat near the back and tried to collect myself. Time resumed its regular pace as I tried to decide what to do. I tried to think hard, yet I was constantly distracted by the serenity of the place.

America. A couple eating. Middle-aged men reading the newspaper. Teens in a booth making fun of them all. How were the so oblivious to the danger not a mile down the road? Danger that had passed right by them? They were spared by chance and knew nothing of it, content to sip their coffee and enjoy the passage of time.
I was sickened by it all. America. Ignorance can’t buy bliss, but it can buy a sort of mediocre contentment.

Again the question of my next action came to me. Should I call the police? Should I get back on the road and try to find him? I was almost paralyzed by indecision. I didn’t have to wait for long.

In he stepped, holding is shotgun at waist level. He shot once and that was all it took. Everyone seemed to scream and move at once, some rushing for the opposite door, others falling to the floor under tables.

Just like that America was shattered. It was a fragile peace, anyway. The only thing that maintained it was everyone’s ignorance of just how delicate it was. With the illusion gone, the real essence of people took over. All tried to hide or run. None could. The first person to the door was shot and fell against it. No one else tried, and everyone instinctively knew that the man could see them. Knew exactly where they were. And they all waited for the end.

Even I, crouched behind a bar stool in the back, was certiain he knew just where I was, though he hadn’t so much as turned in my direction. Everyone was still now, quiet. There were some whimpers and crying, but mostly quiet. He just stood there. No one moved.

But someone had to do something. I realized then that this was the moment I was born for. All my life I had wanted this without fully articulating it. The chance to save someone. The chance to risk it all so that others may live. The chance to oppose evil and prevent pain. Time slowed once again. I knew with clarity that no one else in the shop would try anything. They would all be slaughtered. They would die just as freedom from ignorance could have propelled them to a better life. If they could get out of here, they could cherish it.

Someone needed to do something to make that possible. It was me, and I knew it. He was ten or twelve feet away. Chairs, tables, and terrified people lay between us. It was impossible to reach him before he saw me, raised his shotgun, and pulled the trigger. I cursed my stupidity for not simply slamming on the breaks earlier. It would have solved this whole mess. But now, if I moved, I would die. It would help no one, and I would lose my last chance of escape.

Something had to be done. I was on the very brink of action. I felt adrenaline surging through my veins, eagerly awaing release. And now that I had come to the moment my entire life had led to, I hesitated. Oh the intensity of my destiny, pushing me to jump forward and throw my life away. Oh the restaint of the love of my own life, pulling me to the floor to beg for mercy. I felt as though the two opposing forces would pull me apart and kill me before I was ever seen by the gunman.

I had to do something. My destiny was winning and I prepared to leap forward. The muscles in my legs tensed, and my hand gripped around the bar stool leg. Just then, he turned and walked toward me, stepping over the living and nonliving obstacles in his way. He reached the bar along the window, and looked at me.

“This was for you,” he said. He lifted his firearm and I realized I was looking not at the barrel of the shotgun, but the stock. He offered it to me. Moments before I was preparing to lose my life to save others; now I was offered a part in the chaos.

And right then, I knew I would take the shotgun and join him. And I did. Then I woke and was sad for a long time.

I saw a ball of yarn under the stairs last night. It made me think of you. I don’t know why really. More and more things have that affect on me lately. Like love. The string is wound and wound, continuously surrounding itself into larger and larger being. What was once tangled and uncared for is gingerly bound around itself, the whole growing round and lovely as it expands, feeding and nurturing itself, oblivous to the outside. It needs nothing but its own being to become large and beautiful. It seems like our love was that way. I don’t know, maybe that sounds silly. You and I had all sorts of problems as we began our lives together. We started out a lot more like the disorderly strands of complicated mess that the ball of yarn must have been once. And it didn’t seem like we wound ourselves as tightly and beautifully as something so simply wonderful. Yet we did grow, we expanded, we rounded each other like celestial orbs in etneral embrace. What began so small and obfuscated grew simple and large. Large enough to hold each other. Large enough to hold another. Large enough to unravel the knots and smooth the intersections of self and other. Large enough to display some simple beauty to the rest of the world. But not so large as to be lumbering, but gentle. Soon we started weaving patterns where once there were ordinary lines. The patterns intersected and overlaid, building on one another until a larger pattern was formed, incorporating the rest into its greater self. Our love is like that. To be sure, there are errors here and there in the patterns, little mistakes and awkward overlays. But it’s beautiful.

And one day it stops growing. It has expended all the time it has, and you’re gone. You left the world. I’m left here alone, with all our love, all our built hope and treasure, yet no way to maintain the memory. Soon I’ll start to misplace the memories that shaped our ball, and it will grow mishapen and faded. It is a cruel thing to leave me with only your teasing memory that I cannot grasp. I know you didn’t mean to. We both thought we had so many more revolutions around this ball, this messed up knitting of life. But we did not. We ended suddenly and hard. You were there, then you were not. And the string fell limp onto the floor. And there I lie for the rest of my earthly days, staring up in futility at the thing we made in our shortsighted brightness. The colors are wonderfully harsh. Each beauty is a stabbing needle, filling me up with the most glorious pain man ever conceived. You were soft, strong, shapely, colorful. You were so much more real to me than life, but now I can’t remember. The colors are fading, the pain becoming dull prods of former glory. I spend much of my time to myself considering you and how we were. But moment by moment things fade ever so slightly. One day before I die I will remember little else but that we had a love once, and it was good. Maybe that’s enough.

I’m sure there’s something after the black wall of death. I can’t see you, but you are somewhere. I know not whether I will be there with you one day, or if we’ll know each other. Will se remember our love and the loveliness of it? Will we get to grow it more, or start over with perfection? Who knows but God? One thing only do I know. Our love, our little ball of yarn, we grew it and it was beautiful. That was something.