Through Glass

As I stare out of the foggy window

at the storm of the century on a day as grey as my fleeting heart,

I pick up the forty-five on the window sill.

After I stare down the barrel,

I look back out the window and jump

at the sight of a kid with a basketball in hand staring at me through the glass,

with platinum blonde hair and eyes as grayish blue as the torrential downpour.

The kid asked me why I was pointing the gun at my face.

“Because I want to save the worms from starvation,” I said.

I asked him why he was staring through my window.

He said his ball bounced off of his hoop and that it rolled underneath the window.

He told me basketball is his favorite sport.

“It was mine too,” I said.

He pointed at the gun and asked me how I was going to feed the worms.

“Do the math,” I said.

I pointed to myself.

“One,”

Then I pointed to the pistol.

“Plus .45 equals food for one thousand worms.”

The kids says he was never good at math

“Neither am I kid.”

He asks me if I’m not good at math then how I would know

“Just go back to playing ball, kid”, I said with the utmost annoyance.

As he continued to shoot hoops across the street, I cocked back the hammer on my Glock.

As I did so, the basketball began to disappear as it was about to hit the backboard.

I blinked in amazement and stuck the barrel in my mouth.

The kid’s head started to fade into cold grey air.

I blinked five times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things, the gun still pressed against my tongue.

As I applied slight pressure on the trigger, the kid’s body disappeared, except for his hand, which was waving at me.

I took the gun out of my mouth and threw it on the floor.

I closed my eyes, tears pouring down my face.

When I opened my eyes the kid had just made one from downtown.

He then turned toward me and stuck his thumb up.

I fainted.