365 Cups of Coffee

Sixteen: Spilled Coffee

    Spilled coffee.  That’s the thing I notice first when I reenter the photography room.  My eyes focus on it and don’t leave.  I am terrified, shaking, thinking about the panic that must have overtaken this room when the announcement to evacuate came over the loudspeaker.  A few chairs have been knocked over.  There’s work lying next to a number of computers, unfinished.  I can see paperwork flying out of cabinets, evidence of the shooter’s search for survivors.  But no blood.

    “So there was another one of you in there then,” the voice says. 

    I can’t look up, can’t look death in the eyes.

    “How could you?” I demand.  “How could you kill him?  He was the brightest piece of the future that this school has seen in years.  And you shot him down.  Like he meant nothing.  Like life is nothing.  How could you?”

    “Look at me, Aspen,” the voice says.

    I close my eyes and take a deep breath in, strengthening myself.  I look at him, straight in the eyes.  He’s got brown eyes, dark brown hair.  Sharp cheekbones.  I recognize him, vaguely.  He used to go to the music wing and practice guitar.  I remember he was pretty good, too.  But he never had girls hanging off his arm, never had a posse of friends around him.  He was always a bit of an outcast.  If I’m being honest, I always thought he was a druggie.  He wrote songs about things no one but him understood.  He’d sing them at open mics, and people would applaud, but we’d all look around, seeing if there was deep inspiration or meaning illuminated in someone’s eyes.

    No one ever understood him.  I never even learned his name.  He’s a junior.  I know that much.  But he’s just a human.  I can stop him.  I can stop him, like he stopped a shooting star, burning it up in the weight of his atmosphere.  Luis, gone forever.  Now, I’m not even sad.  I can’t even feel my tears.  All I feel is a burning rage, welling deep inside of me.  I will not die.  No one else today will die.

    “I’m not going to die,” I say. 

    Slowly, I move towards the tables, out of the dark room, keeping my hands up.  The shooter’s eyes dart around wildly, searching for a weapon I could be reaching for to use against him.  But there isn’t one.

    “Why are you doing this?” I ask.

    “Does it matter?” he asks.  “Does anything matter?  Maybe that’s why I’m doing this.  Because, in the end, nothing matters.  All these lives I’m taking . . . Eventually, they’ll all just fade into the background.  They’ll stop mattering in a year.  So will I.  And eventually, so will you.  You’re going to die eventually.  So is your memory.  Why does it matter when?  Why. Does. Anything. Matter?”
    “It matters because I want a chance to prove myself to the world,” I say, calmly.  “I want a chance to show the world my words.  It matters because I want to make a difference, no matter how fleeting.”

    “That’s stupid,” he cackles, aiming the gun at me.  But his hands are sweating now, his grip shaky.

    I see my moment, and I take it.  I reach for a chair behind me, and I throw it as hard as I can.  I hear a shot go off, feel the air around my left ear stir.  But there’s no blood.  He missed, and I didn’t.  He is on the floor, in a heap, gun on the other side of the room.  I pick the chair up, move it back to its original spot, and pick up the gun.

    “This all ends now,” I say, aiming the gun at his head.  “I can’t let you kill anyone else.  This is it.”

    I can see the defeat in his eyes, feel the anger in my own.  I click a bullet into place, like I was taught.  For self-defense.  Steeling my nerves, I bring the gun to the side of his head, and shoot, once.  He’s dead within seconds.  I can see the defeat in his eyes, and it’s over, just like that.