A rough-draft microfiction inspired by the premiere shootings in Aurora, CO, July 20, 2012 .
I dropped to the floor of the theater a few seconds after
the screaming started. The disjointed explosion of automatic weapons filled the
space, forced its way into my ears like battering rams into a siege. My head
had been forcibly overrun—and not just by the sound of gunfire. The sight of the dirty
theater floor affronted my eyes, the smell of Marie’s perfume from a few inches
away made me gag. As I lay on the ground, I put my hands up over my head and
tried with all of what little courage I could grasp to stare hard at the pair
of bejeweled glasses lying shattered and stained on the floor in front of my
face. I reached to grab Marie’s hand and gave it a squeeze, and I waited for her to return
it.
It seemed like forever the shooting went on. They told us
later it was only forty-five seconds, that they began leading survivors out of
the theater after only a minute and a half. But they don’t know. You see, they
weren’t there. The truth is, it was endlessly longer. It took hours for the
pool of Marie’s blood to reach the rims of those glasses, and it was what must
have been a day before it touched my skin as I pressed my chin fervently into
the floor.
NOTE:
I know there is no way I could know what those who were present went through unless I was there too. I am not trying to trivialize or sensationalize what happened. I am merely examining my own thoughts on the event through writing, and there is no hidden agenda. Nobody should take this as anything but fiction. My prayers go out to the victims and their families, Christian and Non-Christian alike.
