Robert pushed the key into the lock on his apartment door; a dingy and small abode on the third floor of a declining building. His formally barrel chest heaved as he let out a sigh as he stepped inside and put his work bag down next to an end table by the entrance. Another grinding day at work was at last complete, but he wasn't sure how many of them he had left inside of him.
His apartment, though small and unkempt, was filled with things he enjoyed and was proud of. A myriad of medals from his time in the service sat behind the glass door of an unused liquor cabinet; silver stars, purple hearts, and the highest accolade of all amongst them. He looked at them briefly and his brow furrowed as he made his way to the couch, positioned in the middle of the room, and nearly fell onto it.
The boots he wore for his job at the auto-shop came off, caked in oil and muck and didn't make it very far from where they no doubt sat most days. He rubs his eyes and rests his head in his hands for several minutes.
He was a tall man, and although time and circumstance had not been kind to him, some might even call him handsome still, with deep brown hair and bright green eyes. His physique bore the unique shape of someone who was in peak physical condition, but has let that begin to slip away from him through the years.
I can't do this anymore. He thought to himself.
I hate it here. I hate waking up every morning. I hate looking in the mirror. I hate forcing a smile. I just can't fucking do it anymore and if I have to go another day, I'll scream.
Thoughts like these often plagued him, and today he decided he was going to do something about them. He got up and scrubbed his blackened hands clean, changed out of his stained clothes, and found some notebook paper and a pen.
His soul poured out of him from his ten cent plastic pen and onto the page below. The handwriting was clean, neatly legible for whoever finds it, and heartfelt. Years of grief and turmoil finally found their outlet and soon would trouble him no more. When he was finished, he gave it a read, and then a second one, and satisfied with it, tore the page from the notebook, folded it in half, and propped it up like a tent on his coffee table. He didn't feel the need to address it, it would be clear enough.
Standing he made his way into his small bedroom and from underneath his pillow retrieved his old service pistol, or at least the near enough copy he bought when he came back to the states.
He returned to the couch in the living room, pressed the barrel to his forehead, and considered the best angle to do it at. He didn't want his back to the door, just in case the bullet went awry and into the hallway. The barrel snaked its way into his mouth, but he remembered hearing horror stories of people surviving that. The temple; yes that would be best, he decided.
With one last breath he looked around his home for the last time, finger against the trigger guard. He cocked the hammer back with his thumb, moved his finger to the trigger, started to squeeze, and then his phone rang from his pocket, playing an upbeat rock tune from the eighties with a high pitched man singing.
He faltered momentarily, and elected to ignore it. But when the singer reached his operatic crescendo notes, signaling the approaching end of the ringtone, he slapped the gun onto the table and roughly pulled the annoying device out of his pocket. The caller I.D. read: "Jack".
Despite himself, he swiped the glowing icon and answered the phone, putting it on speaker and leaning back against the sofa with his eyes shut.
"Hey man." Was all he offered, his voice horse and fighting tears, which he hoped did not come through.
"Oh shit man, I was about to leave a voicemail." Jack started. He was his only real friend left in the world, never really considering his coworkers as anything other than that.
"Sorry, I had my hands full, what's up?" Robert opened his eyes and peered, heavy lidded, from the phone to the handgun.
"Man we haven't hung out in a while, and I've been burnt out at the office, I was seeing what you were doing this weekend."
Jack had a fairly good life as a software engineer for a small tech company in the city, and he was right, between that and Robert's work they didn't speak as often as they did when they were kids.
"What did you have in mind? I don't really have the money to go out drinking."
"No, fuck that, that's what everyone always wants to do. I figure you come over, or I come over, whatever, and we order a pizza, play some video games, maybe hit up a comic shop like we're teenagers again." Jack's voice had picked up in tone and sincerity; he was genuinely excited for this.
"This sounds like you're asking me out on a date." Robert teased.
"Well Bob, if you wine and dine me, maybe you'll get lucky." They both share a small chuckle.
Robert exhaled through his nose; the minotaur accepting his fate at the hands of Theseus. "Yeah man sounds good. What's today, Thursday? I'll text you Saturday morning, we'll figure it out."
From the speaker on his phone, now a good foot or two away as he sunk further into the couch, Robert heard his friend exclaim an exaggerated and elongated: "Fuuuck yeah bud. I'll see you then."
They say their pleasantries and goodbyes, and sure enough on Saturday they meet in the morning at a coffee shop equidistant from their homes. Robert had gotten there first by a half hour, already ordered and placed himself in one corner with his eyes on the door to watch for his friend.
It was the early summer in Texas and so Robert was sporting jeans and a baggy t-shirt, and hidden beneath, tucked neatly in a holster inside his waistband was another pistol. He didn't go out much these days without one, and when asked he would say that old habits die hard.
Eventually Jack arrives, a few scant minutes after their promised time, wearing cargo shorts, a tank top and sandals. He was a thin and tall man, with blonde hair and eyes like the unbidden sea. Robert had always teased him that if he took some pride in his appearance he may keep a girlfriend for more than three months.
The two men make eye contact, and Robert stands at his friend's approach. They share a brief hug and pat each other on the shoulder. They exchange "good to see you's" and Jack goes to order himself an iced coffee from the overworked baristas. Robert smiles a genuine smile as he sits and sips at his own confectionery and ponders. This may be what he needed after all, a weekend of decompression with someone that genuinely cares. It wouldn't fix everything of course, but it would keep him going for a while.
While Robert is lost in thought, and Jack is busy taking out his wallet, the door to the cafe bursts open with a kick from a pair of heavy boots. Two desperate men in balaclava's storm inside with a fury, demanding everyone get on the ground. One of them, the one barking orders, is waving a pistol around, and his larger cohort is swinging a pump action shotgun in an arc across the room.
It all happened so fast that Robert didn't remember standing, or reaching for his concealed pistol. All he could focus on now was that familiar ringing in his ears and the sucking hole in his chest, eaten by buckshot.
He looked for Jack as his vision started to fail him, and his eyes got heavy. He saw the one with the shotgun on the floor, at least he had gotten him, and the other shoulder his way through the door and escape. He saw other people on the ground as well, some clutching at their sides or their shoulders. Among them he saw that blonde hair and that tank top, now quickly turning red.
He shut his eyes, and that was that. The news would report it as a robbery turned mass shooting, as the surviving gunman would go on to wound several people in the parking lot before crashing his getaway car into a street lamp trying to escape the police. The story makes the national circuits for a week but is forgotten about just like all the other tragedies in America as something else takes the spotlight.
Light.
That was a curious thing. Robert could see light. After the light came sound and form as well, and he found himself waking up, hazily, in a field of endless green waving grass and tranquil hillsides.
"Fuck my head hurts." he bemoaned out loud. His voice sounded off, but then he was still coming too.
"Tell me about it." Another voice agreed, and as Robert turned he spotted familiar blonde hair and eyes like the ocean, but the face was younger and sharper; handcrafted like a simulacrum of his friend.
Panic sets in, and Robert's heart begins to pound, and the look on the other man's face mirrored the same feeling. Surely they had died, they remembered it so, and yet, here they were in some other place, as some other people.