The shot calls out in the dark and hears its own voice echo back. It sounds like someone pounding a stone on a steel drum to anyone but me. The muzzle flash is quick and sharp. It's so black out here I can't tell which way the gunfire glistens. I'm looking right at him and I can't decide if he really sees me behind the concrete barriers or if he's bluffing. Every time the gun flashes, the light imprints in my vision and goes purple and blotches out all the little pinhole lights across the river in all their pretty colors. I see whole sections of the city pressed against the hills go dark in the silhouette of the shooter as he moves around for a better angle on me.
Or does he?
Does my eye glow and reflect the pinhole lights?
Does the barrel of my gun?
Can he see the glint of steel against all the porchlights and street signs and bars blinking neon?
His shots are wild and afraid. I'm scared, too. But I'm scared stiff. It takes all my concentration to move my arm with the blacked-out lights as it dances with the popping fire and deadly sounds. Takes all my concentration not to shake. And my gun thunders. And in the light of the shot I see the gunman's loose surprise. And the silhouette drops like a curtain to reveal the skyline of the city hills unblemished. My ears ring until they fall on the noise of sirens. The voice of the wailing little light parade grows steadily closer. Underneath their cries, I hear the labored breaths of a dying man. His breaths sound a lot like the times you blew bubbles in your drink through a straw. His teeth click and grind and I can hear his breaths take the air so sharply between his clenched jaw it almost whistles. And he sees me against the color of the sky. And his breathing gets faster. So fast he gurgles and mutters curses from the pain. I want to know if he can feel the air push out of his punctured lung. Can he feel the warm current lap against his insides? But what I want to know the most I know he won't be able to answer. I lean in close enough to smell his sweat. I have so many questions.
Do you know why I've hunted you all these days?
Do you know how I found you everywhere you ran?
Do you remember how they trusted you? Or who they were at all?
Even against the screaming cries of the sirens, I whisper close to him because I know he can hear. All my questions, they boil down to "Do you remember who I am?" And the sound of my voice breaks mountains inside him, and he shudders in fear with the last of his breaths. His head knocks back and rolls a little against the ground. I stand as the patrols zip across the country roads, trying their best to reach the docks. The red and blue makes a light show between the branches and leaves. I can take my time before they reach the shore. So I follow the lights and the line of the river, the gun tucked in my pocket, knowing the sirens will never catch up to me.
