a. Circle each other

You chose:

a. Circle each other.

We both start circling each other. As if on cue, my friend with the tiled living room floor shows up with his neighbors, who themselves show up with pitchforks and torches. Apparently that was for show. They pull out better weapons: bazookas, sawed-off shotguns, machetes, pistols, iron flails and iron maces. They hand me a handgun. Awesome. Not a bazooka or medieval weapon. A flimsy pistol.

Nonetheless. There’s power in numbers.

We circle Gordon. He puts two fingers in his mouth, whistles and the front door opens. In walks a gang of Ex-Soviet-British double agents. Well, they’re Soviets who double-agented like they were British spies. So however one would word that. Anyway, it’s clear they’ve reverted to their Soviet ways, accent and all. All curt and brutish. The circle opens and widens to include all 14 of us. Gordon and his 6 Soviet-British henchmen. Me and my posse with pitchforks and medieval weaponry.

Gordon slowly steps into the middle of the circle. Since it seemed like the thing to do, I too step forward into the circle. We’re standing no more than 4 feet from each other, staring, our entourages’ guns aiming at each other. Gordon calls me something in Russian. It’s clear he too is a Soviet-Brit. If only the world knew. That explains the short temper, I suppose. I shout back in a fake British accent something unwise about his mom. Gordon immediately raises his gun at my head. My friend with the tiled living room floor and his friends bristle, loudly adjusting their weapons still fixed on the Soviet-Brits. I’m the only one not pointing a gun at anyone, and since I’d also seen that before, I take aim at Gordon’s head.

A trigger-happy Soviet-Brit literally jumps his gun and all out war breaks loose. Guns are firing, maces are flailing, bazookas are blazing. And bodies are flying like wounded pigeons. The bazooka shooter is dead. But he made his marks, blasting two thugs through the wall. He himself was blown open by a fallen neighbor’s sawed-off shotgun. He never saw it coming.

In only a few moments, everything goes still. The house falls silent; not even the sound of empty shell casings continues. Smoke dominates the room. Fires grow in the street from the outbound, thug-encased, bazooka explosions. Machine-gun bullet holes play a juvenile game of connect-the-dots along the wall. Glass and blood and bodies litter the house.

Everyone is dead.

Gordon. His Soviet-British, double-agented, henchmen. My posse with pitchforks, torches, and bazookas. My friend, and even myself.

Lying there. Lifeless.

Splattered on my friend’s tiled living room floor. Right in front of the fan.

THE END.

(Return to the beginning.)