Chapter Six
A strange silence followed the trigger pull. Eric blinked. That wasn't quite right. Guns were supposed to go KABLAM when you shot them. Furthermore, he was supposed to be dead. He still felt pretty alive. Rationally, he shouldn't have held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, but he brought himself out of irrationality and thought. And a moment of rational thought told him the gun must have misfired.
He held it in his hands, running his fingers along the cold silver barrel. Then he went back to irrational thinking. He giggled with sudden, manic giddy laughter. “It didn't go off!” he laughed, tossing the gun away. It landed on the floor with a clunk. “It didn't go off! Holy mother of God, I should be dead!” He sat there, stupidly looking at the gun on the ground, and then muttered, “Well shit.”
He wasn't quite sure what to think. He didn't have some sort of epiphany or anything. All he knew was that he had made the decision to kill himself, carried it out, and by some stroke of fate, the gun didn't go off. He didn't realize how much he had actually enjoyed his life now that he almost died. He didn't realize that he had taken anything for granted. The whole moment was rather underwhelming, actually, about as dramatic as the buildup to a big sneeze that suddenly loses its vigor and disappears. Simply a dud.
So since nothing had changed, he still should have been suicidal, right? That much was true. He still hated his life and would give anything to escape it. But the amount of nerve it takes to put a loaded revolver to your head and pull the trigger is staggering. And it had been spent. It was an all or nothing sort of deal. All that time thinking. The finality of the decision. Knowing he was about to die. But a dud. A dud was the last thing he expected. He had not planned ahead in the unlikelihood that the hammer would strike upon a goddamn dud. What he had planned on was being dead, and dead he was not. He was actually very much not dead.
So... now what? So the gun didn't go off the first time. He had six bullets in the chambers. Right? That left five live rounds, and it seemed ludicrous that any of those could be duds. What were the odds that even one of the six would be a dud? He must have shot that gun hundreds of times, never had a problem once, other than the cylinder jamming. Never a dud. Never did he have a dud. He pictured himself putting the gun to his head, and pulling the trigger. Click. 'Shit,' he would say, and spin it again. He imagined doing that for each chamber, and then tossing the gun away, dejected.
No, he knew that wouldn't happen. The first dud shouldn't have happened. It was absurd. But the second bullet. The second bullet would most surely fire, it was common sense. He had never heard of two duds in a row. He had never heard of someone getting a dud when they attempted suicide, either. Duds weren't that unlikely he supposed, but the odds of getting a dud when he was about to kill himself... Stupid. Stupid, silly timing. But the second bullet. That would do the trick. So what was the deal? Just pull the hammer back again and fire. Hell, even if ALL of those were duds, he had a whole goddamn box of ammunition. No matter how one looked at it, if Eric really wanted to die, he was going to die.
And he wanted to die, right? That couldn't be more obvious. He just put a gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. He should be dead. But he wasn't. He could remedy that in a heartbeat, he knew he could. He picked up the gun. Fiddled with it. Pulled the hammer back. Put it to his head. But it wasn't the same. Hell, it was all wrong! The moment had been ruined by the severely anti-climactic result of what should have otherwise been a spectacularly gory trigger pull. It was silly. He hated himself for it. But the nerve was gone, and he knew he would not be pulling that trigger again, not now, not ever.
“Why?” he asked the gun, looking down the cold hard barrel. “Why didn't you go off, little guy?” His hands shook in sudden anger. He couldn't do anything right. His mother, people at school, teachers, always with their high and mighty heads, you can't do anything, Eric Waters. You can't even kill yourself properly. “Why?!” he screamed, slamming his fists on his desk. “Why the hell am I alive?! God damn it, I was so close!” It was unfair to the highest degree. He shouted profanely, and then calmed down.
So still remained the question-- what now? He was still alive, and as far as he could figure, that wasn't going to change for somewhat a very long time. His anxiety flared up again. He was trapped, stuck in this shit-hole life. No escape. But there was, actually. A temporary escape, but an effective one, and one he needed right now. Worked better than any anti-depressant or anxiety pill he ever had.
He dug into his drawer and pulled out his secret wallet. This money was for emergencies only, though he rarely saved it for anything dire. This was dire, right? He almost blew his head off with a revolver. He needed something, anything to take the edge off. He opened the wallet and fished out ten dollars, and called his dealer.
