What dreams may come.
Rich says to me, "You should let me kill you." He's angling a sawed-off shotgun, smiling warmly. "Honestly, it's so much better. I hooked myself, you know." And I realize I'm not talking to the Rich I've come to know, but some New & Improved Rich, the re-manifestation of Rich into something better, stronger, more highly evolved.
"Will it hurt?" I ask with hesitation. "Or will it just happen in an instant? Because if I'm going to feel it, I just don't think I can do it." He reassures me, it's instantaneous, there's something better waiting for me if only I can trust him. But I'm fearful, self-protective, afraid not of what lies ahead but the journey I must take to reach it.
He somehow convinces me, and I'm lying nervously on my stomach with him straddling my back, nudging the shotgun against the back of my head. He's breathing slowly, pausing while I steel myself. He waits until the energy feels right, until we're in synch, and then he pulls the trigger.
The bullet, a golf ball-sized wad of lumpy metal, creeps slowly down the barrel. I can see it in my mind's eye, the gun bulging like a cartoon as it moves in toward my cerebellum (the part of the brain below the back of the cerebrum. It regulates balance, posture, movement, and muscle coordination) or perhaps as high as my occipital lobe (the region at the back of each cerebral hemisphere that contains the centers of vision and reading ability)? And just before it lodges itself into my skull, I turn my head to the left, just slightly.
The bullet glances off to the right, breaking the skin but leaving me alive to wonder, what is this change that I'm so afraid of?
Rich says to me, "You should let me kill you." He's angling a sawed-off shotgun, smiling warmly. "Honestly, it's so much better. I hooked myself, you know." And I realize I'm not talking to the Rich I've come to know, but some New & Improved Rich, the re-manifestation of Rich into something better, stronger, more highly evolved.
"Will it hurt?" I ask with hesitation. "Or will it just happen in an instant? Because if I'm going to feel it, I just don't think I can do it." He reassures me, it's instantaneous, there's something better waiting for me if only I can trust him. But I'm fearful, self-protective, afraid not of what lies ahead but the journey I must take to reach it.
He somehow convinces me, and I'm lying nervously on my stomach with him straddling my back, nudging the shotgun against the back of my head. He's breathing slowly, pausing while I steel myself. He waits until the energy feels right, until we're in synch, and then he pulls the trigger.
The bullet, a golf ball-sized wad of lumpy metal, creeps slowly down the barrel. I can see it in my mind's eye, the gun bulging like a cartoon as it moves in toward my cerebellum (the part of the brain below the back of the cerebrum. It regulates balance, posture, movement, and muscle coordination) or perhaps as high as my occipital lobe (the region at the back of each cerebral hemisphere that contains the centers of vision and reading ability)? And just before it lodges itself into my skull, I turn my head to the left, just slightly.
The bullet glances off to the right, breaking the skin but leaving me alive to wonder, what is this change that I'm so afraid of?
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