Roulette

I spied on him through the glass. I could see how unhappy he was. How utterly depressed he was. I could see his hopelessness. I know that look, I thought. How it felt when your body seems to be doing things at the direction of some deeper, more primitive desperation. I found his despair fascinating.

I could see how he ignored the higher executive lobes of his mind. I watched as he fingered the revolver. I watched him open the gun and put in a single bullet. To my horror, albeit titillating, I saw him snap it back shut and give the canister a spin.

I watched him. I studied him. I could learn a lot about myself by observing this guy. Poor soul.

I looked right at him through the glass. I often watched him this way. But he was no more aware of me as he was of his rational self who screamed for him not to do this. His volition, however, was deaf and blind to those screams or to whom might be watching. It was time to step in. It was time to act.

I watched him when he looked right back at me. Our eyes were fixed on each other's, immovable, and I knew he wouldn't blink first. We were each separated by simple glass through which each now studied the other. He smiled. He didn't care that I was there, intending to discourage him. He didn't care who I was. I reached out but could not touch him.

We were eye-to-eye when he lifted the gun to his temple, smiling at me as he did. Was he smiling to himself?

Yes, he was.

I watched helplessly as he squeezed the trigger. We both laughed when all we heard was an empty, harmless click — me in exasperation, him in irony. (Were those the same?) I watched as he put the gun back down again, slowly.

He would live to play again another day.

Bullets are destroyers. Destroyers of futures. Destroyers of lives. Destroyers of trust and love and ambitions. One shouldn't be careless with bullets. They put more than extra holes in bodies; they put unfillable holes into the world.

Yes, bullets are dangerous. Guns were dangerous. Had the gun fired, had the aim been askew, it could have passed through his head with enough force to shatter the mirror I had been looking into.

And that would have meant years of bad luck.