#206 The First Step

by Ran Mainardi

Soraya thought of pulling the trigger. Again.

Each night it was like this. Every detail was the same. The imaginary gun still resembled an old revolver she once saw on TV years ago—although on a particularly uninspired night she would settle for two lethal fingers cocked to the temple—and she always stopped just before the gun was fired.

She hoped for a clean death. No blood, no sweat and no tears. There would be no brain matter bursting out and staining the pillow while a million pieces of her soul perished once that imaginary trigger-pulling was accomplished. Or perhaps they would simply soar like balloons and disappeared into the sky, depending on her mood that day.

As if.

Death is messy. Death is loud. That last pull of breath would come screeching and where would she escape?

Tonight, like any other night, she lay on the bed and tried to focus on something else other than the creeping dark. “You selfish bitch,” she scolded herself. “You selfish bitch.” Then a switch was flicked inside and she turned against herself. “You coward. Oh, you coward.”

She didn’t want to imagine the real thing. Soraya wasn’t ready although she often flirted with the line and thought of crossing it.

But didn’t they say that a thought is the first step towards action? If she continued replaying the scenario in her head, wouldn’t she arrive at it one day?

One pull. Just one pull.

Then her husband would be no more.