He held the image of the cave in his mind with a perfect crystalline awareness, its rocky lips and jagged edges parting out into the blue, blue sea of the Mediterranean. It was the last time he could recall being truly happy, wading out of the darkness of the cave’s belly to the impossible beauty of the grotto’s quartz filtered light. Shannon had been there and they had held hands and hadn’t even needed to look at each other to know the other one was smiling.
He put that image into the blackness of the pistol’s muzzle, using it to bury the darkness at the other end, using it to hold down the failed business, bad investments, foreclosure. Therapy and medication had held those things in place for a time, but insurance became unaffordable and alcohol and a firearm were so much cheaper.
The trigger wasn’t sending something to him, though, not a bullet from the barrel, it was taking him somewhere. It was going to transport him from the failed wreckage of his life and out to that cobalt sea. Shannon would be there again and just like with the cave, they’d be able to see the light and step out into the sunshine once he had passed through the short, cold dark.
See the author’s published work here.
Image courtesy of Italy Guides.
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