There is more to the story …

6am start today, followed by renovations mostly to plan wrapped up by 8, and I was back reading in the park before 9. By 11, my baby shot me down. I had already begun bleeding internally when I heard the bang, and I sat with the book open while my blood pressure dropped and the edges of the page blurred. I was grateful to be sitting down at lest. Vasovagal syncope would have put me on if not in the ground otherwise, so there are after all some small mercies to cling to I guess. I swallowed against the saliva collecting under my tongue and waited for enough of my sight to return so I could read again. Message received, and it is almost funny how so many can be delivered by never being sent. Radio silence. Still loud and clear. I kept registering it, even as the gunshot hemorrhaged like a burst pipe, letting the bullet work further into me. I had wanted so little, I thought, and then felt sick all over again with how much of my life I had already let gather around the possibility of it.