It sounds like a joke, doesn’t it, or the beginning of one? Three gunmen enter a bar? Only there were two nearly identical gunmen rather than three of a different order, and Que Sera was more restaurant for the senior citizen set than bar for those with lives yet to live, and the joke, well, there was no joke. Who but a sociopath would joke about a mass shooting in this day and age?

Rich and I hit a few balls, when he pulled me off the court, his finger up to his lips. He led me down a hallway to an alcove. The sun streamed in through a skylight, illuminating a balcony above. Everything was silent except for the echo of my Adidas’ rubber soles scraping against the floor.

Sat with two guys at chow.  One a ball turret gunner I flew with a few missions back.  Before takeoff he sees me looking at the Jewish star on his sleeve and says if he goes down he wants those Nazi bastards to know exactly who he is.

It’s a new world out there, the email read, and the paper was determined to do its part to help shape it.  Out were clues reliant on knowledge of the Roman Empire or movies from before 1975.  In were things like present-day commercial jingles and streaming services.  More sports, less literature.

A year later, we married.  A couple more passed before we decided we wanted to have a child.  Because we were unable to have one, she came to hate me.  Maybe it was more than that.  What she said was, “I hate you…”

On the runway before climbing up the tail-gunner tells me he has a bad feeling about this trip.  Says these 17s feel like a coffin to him and he’ll bail out at the first sign of trouble.  I say we all will as a last resort but he’s not listening so I shut up.

Bright sun. My eyes water. You are standing at the end of the point. On the horizon, Kirk and Matty float back-to-back on the inner tube, legs dangling in the cold water. A small finch lands on a bough of the spruce in front of me, and its weight reveals a linen shoulder–Anita’s shoulder–level with your knees.

She stood out of her chair under the fruitless mulberry tree and strolled over to the century plant. She paused, surveyed the lot, and then bent and snatched up a rock she threw in my direction with all her might.
To avoid being pelted by the stone, I hit the dirt.

The bus squeals to a halt before his stop and the folding doors open with a hiss like an exhalation of breath. He makes his way to the front of the bus, careful not to brush against any of the legs that protrude into the aisle. He nods to the bus driver and the driver gives the slightest declination of his head and looks away as he gets off.   

The skies are black with smoke from thousands of smashed buildings. Roads are like the surface of the moon. I am forced to park my car five kilometres away from home and walk. Streets are barely recognisable. In places I must scramble over smashed piles of rubble. Cats prowl through the ruins. It has become a city of predators. At one place I gash my hand and I curse. I hear bombers overhead and I shout at them, hurl a brick at them that lands in a burning building and nearly dislocate my elbow for my trouble.