Punctured
By Michael P. Ferrari
Originally published in First Writer magazine.
The left half of my collarbone shatters into chips when the bullet makes contact. It doesn’t hurt right away. In fact, it only feels like a buzzing at first. Small, pulsing buzzes–like a cell phone. Then comes the heat from the bullet. That’s when the pain begins. The heat swims throughout the upper half of my body like ripples running across water. The hot contact turns into an intense sting. It’s at that point when the brain picks up on the pain signals screaming out from the wound. This is where it all goes wrong; the pain is so wild and pure, I can’t help but look at the wound. Blood soaking over the singed and ripped tatters around the bullet hole.
Loose, disconnected muscle fibers gently flop and pulsate for a moment. The burning gets worse, but soon I forget about that; I’m more concerned with the fact that a 9mm train just crushed its way through solid bone and tightly spun muscle.
“Loretta!” I hear screaming. It’s Ethan, my partner. He’s only 50 feet away from me, but it feels really far. The movies have it all wrong. When they show someone dying, they always show it in slow motion. It’s not like that. Right now, everything is moving like blurred lightning. It makes sense. These are my last moments–why wouldn’t they go quick?
Ethan closes over 20 feet of the distance before I can form a full breath. He stops and his head flings back like a snapped rubber band. A red, wet dust explodes from his left shoulder. He lands on his back, flattening along the black pavement, before his body curls to a fetal position. His feet start pushing against the ground while he tries to worm his body backwards. Slow legs push along with awkward, limp upper body movements that steer him back behind our cruiser. Cold tears drip down along the bottom of my eye and trail off down my temple and along my ear. It feels so icy and wet–I shiver. I don’t want to believe you abandoned me, Ethan. I know you’re not thinking of it that way. I know you’re not thinking at all. Your daughter is only two. You’re only doing what your survival instincts are telling you. I don’t want to call you a coward.
The pop of another gun blast soars through my ears so quickly. My torso twitches into a full-out spasm. A geyser of blood erupts from the left side of my stomach then subsides quickly. The bullet sinks in. It swims downwards, through blood, muscle and tissue, flushing slowly into me. At first the heat of the bullet makes the whole thing feel like nervous butterflies shaking in my tummy. Then the burning turns to a scorching, and the scorching turns to a deep, violent penetration–all in the course of a second.
My mother and father are still alive. The death of their only daughter will cripple them. Steven will have to worry about them. Steven… when we first met on the crowded concrete in front of the mall, did you ever think I’d end up like this? Did you ever pass this idea through your mind when you held my hand on the marble church alter during our wedding? Did you think of this as you held me close while we kissed? You were so proud of me–your little ‘Retta; you’re big, bad police women. Through all that pride, you had to see this happening. You had to know that someday you’d be left to hug our child alone.
Back up arrives two minutes too late. Three cruisers at first, then another two follow within a second. Cops circle around the area like ants storming a sugar cube. Makeshift trenches form from behind each car. Each breath from my mouth feels colder when I exhale. Water glazes over my eyes. I can’t help sobbing… the world looks like a bad place to be when you see it through a veil of tears.
Amber–I don’t want to think of her right now. My little girl–my teen angel with the soft face. How could anyone stop kissing that face? I’m sorry. I hope you’re not ashamed that your mom is scared. I hope you won’t be mad when you hear I cried this whole time. I’m only doing it because I can’t help but think about how we’re ending our relationship this way. Flashes of your birth fill my senses with imagery so vivid that I feel like I live within a memory. I see you walking for the first time. I hear your first words. I relive the anguish I felt seeing you get teased by the kids in the house behind us. A slide show of positives and negatives, of events and milestones pass with each breath. I wish you could see it. I wish you could experience the bittersweet pride I’m feeling right now. My arms feel numb. I try to imagine how beautiful you’ll look next to your handsome groom on your wedding day. I know me and your father would love him, whoever he’ll be.
The guns unload in sync. The snapping, popping claps of each gunshot go off just in time for another to follow it. The quick and sudden flashes and blasts–they’re like the fireworks we set off at the lake last week. The area becomes a firing range. The noise stops. A limp, bloody body splashes onto the ground. I want to curse and scream. I want to send my hatred for that man who did this outward onto the world and let it crumble bone and devour soul. I want to carry his dead body through Hell and bathe in the smoke from his burning blood and tissue. But that feeling passes. Instead, security blankets over my nerves when I see him fall. I exhale. Gravity gives up and gives me a break. I wish I could float.
I feel the warmth and color draining from my face. Paramedics scurry around me. News crews and spectators circle the area. The noise is overwhelming my weak ears, then it deafens quickly, as if invisible hands box my ears. All I want to hear is laughter. I want to hear Amber giggling and jumping after receiving the car we bought for her 17th birthday. I want to smell the hot dough and toasted cinnamon from the snickerdoodles my mom makes at Christmas. I want my forehead to feel the soft pressure of the kisses Steven used to leave there while he thought I was sleeping. I want to feel my father’s supportive hand slipping slightly off my back as he teaches me to ride a bike.
My vision is making the world segmented, jumbled. Each blink feels like it should take minutes off my life. One moment, I’m being rested onto a gurney. Another and I’m already in the ambulance.
Ethan is holding my hand, but I can’t feel it. I don’t want to feel it, and I don’t want to hold on. Is part of being a good wife, mother, daughter and friend knowing when to not to give up or knowing when to give in? They may never know how much I’ll miss them. They may never understand why I did this. But for now, all I want them to know is how I took a bow with my back to the pearly gates in a way so robust and colorful that’d make Elton John jealous. I want them to know that I left with silence, grace and, most of all, tears. I want them to see me as I blow them a kiss and drift away…
