He Has
Come by Ryan Robert
Mullen
Here it's just me, my gun and
run run run until the war is won. This will involve
lots of shooting. Most the time we take our guns
apart and put them back together, so we know them
well. This war came over when I was a kid, came
over and capped my mom and dad. When it happened
I was at my first sleepover, my buddy Jimmy Sagner's
place. Later they got him too.
When I saw the white R crudely
writ upon the door, I should have known. I should
not have opened it. I should have walked the other
way, far as I could, turned around, walk the other
way far as I could, turn around, walk the other
way as far as I could, turn around, walk the other
way far as I could. I was a kid, the real and sure
white R did not connect to any solid matter of memory
or knowledge. I opened the door.
And there they and everything
they had owned was spilled and mushed together.
It was quite a sight, I've seen a thousand times
worse now, sure, but this was then. What made me
maddest of all was that they broke mother's green
cow-shaped creamer. Her mother had given her that
creamer, she would always get sad when I played
with it, she told me not to touch it, and there
it was broken. That was the first time I'd seen
my parents dead, now it happens all the time. That's
not important. I mean, that's not what I want you
to know. I want you to know about this woman I shot,
I mean, this lady. Blew her away during the Final
Address.
1707 Fulmer Ave., that was
the address the KID (Kill IDentifier) had given
me. The KID was just some orphaned kid, most were,
that's why someone thought-up the clever acronym.
So when one of these KIDs gives you an address you
go there and ACKACKACKACKACK! That's our chain-of-command,
if you want to call it that. Children can get so
filthy without parents, they looked like little
trolls. Sure, I know some say these illiterate trolls
could be wrong, I'm going to ignore that for the
time being.
The Final Address, wasn't really
the final Address, it was just supposed to be. A
shadow the shape of a green cow-figured creamer
and myself just walked right in. The door was open
and everything, it was a pretty hot day. She was
sitting, with her back towards me, on a plump little
burgundy cushion. A new President was speaking,
these expire in about a week, last month we went
through five, by now it was probably the janitor's
son. He was standing next to a brown bald man with
bright round spectacles, this man was small and
quiet like a tiny metal ball. I guess I started
watching TV, people have a tendency to do that,
mindlessly.
"So officially,"
spoke the new President, "the terms "Democrat"
and "Republican" are now officially meaningless
nomenclature as this noble democracy has been dissolved."
Forgetting where I am and why, I readjust my weight.
Creek! I snap something in her aura of swaying daisies.
Eek! She gets up, runs, ACKACKACKACKACK! My finger
jerks and that was that: fourteen leaden trains
through her soft chest. What's important is what
happened in between. I saw her, and by this I mean,
I saw HER: the goddess, the little girl, Virgin
Mary, the woman herself. HER. In between I saw wide
eyes like a beautiful animal. She was something
really beautiful and close to God, I could've married
her.
"This great man,"
the new non-President pointed to the little man,
"is Mahatma Gandhi. He has come to bring..."
ACKACKACKACKACK and that was that: only still and
meaningless bodies fill the screen. So I lay myself
down with the Virgin Mary and a hot tear slides
up my throat, out my eye. Outside everything goes
to hell.
