Throngs of walking and talking meat. Not yet at their ending although some are easy enough to foretell. I block out that I am just like them. Imagining the morbidly obese clerk keeling over in the coming months over a macaroni dinner on Christmas and the paralyzed old biddy immolated in their bed from their final cigarette. And I, I would be in front of an audience after conducting an orchestra of convicts playing Carmina Burana with improvised tools and eviscerated hostages. I would bow before an ATF audience to accept the fatal sniper shot.
A woman leaning against a wall waiting for something or someone casually talks about me as I pass by. I say nothing. Images flash by of slit throats and soprano singers. I can’t stand the people. I go to get my headphones and play some music but realize I left the headphones at home. My smartphone’s speakers aren’t enough to drown out their noise. I pensively continue on in my trek and try to be nice and trying to avoid people. I should add “in vain” because at every turn and every few feet I am blockaded by more and more meat and tortured with banal pop songs that have been on repeat for over twenty years.
From the corner of my eye, I notice the hardware isle where a demonstration is taking place. A little Asian man in a tux presents his wares. I can barely understand what he’s saying and question how this happened in the first place. A tank of gasoline sits by his shoes and a glass tank barely covered by a cheap tarp stands behind him. “Welcome everyone! This is the biggest adventure ever for your garden!” He walks away from the gas tank and shows off an over-designed expensive leaf blower. He gestures like a low budget game show host, it seems there’s going to be money in the tank and they’re going to play a game. I also notice the chainsaws in a nearby aisle and became inspired.
My motto is:
Friendship is Friendship
History is History
I got it from a book of Chinese proverbs. It’s the same one where I learned the curse “May you live in interesting times.”
The Asian man is distracted for a moment answering a stupid question and I nonchalantly grab the gas tank. I settle on a blue chainsaw approximately double the length of my arm. I am astonished that the chain is on it but as I guessed there’s no gas in it which I am quick to remedy. A child keeps screaming in the background. No one notices me filling the tank. I start up the saw and have at the meat.
They finally move out of the way. There’s a sudden startled scream from two women, I swing my righteous blade towards anyone nearby and I no longer hear the crying child and I no longer see an incessant crowd but wood to the fire. Reminding myself of Japanese war time atrocities and how the they used the term ‘Maruta’ meaning ‘wood’ to define civilians with which they would rape and split apart in their hundreds of thousands. I don’t think the little Asian man thought of that as I cut off his legs and made him ever-smaller.
I thank you for gun control. Without which this wouldn’t be made possible.
Rivers of blood stain the white tiles and my fiery sword roars like a giant leading a triumphant army into battle. Families. Children. Teenagers. Elderly. The clerks. I make no note of who I take but show no favoritism in how they are ended. Cleaved in twos and threes. Severing the genitals with pointed thrusts. Execution via chainsaw to the brain -more merciful than a dictatorship that executes prisoners by hanging.
Sirens begin to wail after such short triumph and I am fully aware of my predicament by deciding to end this experience on a high note: I sit down cross-legged with my means of catharsis in my lap and await my applause and deserved gifts. I know I will be given the key to the city as my great reward for a job well done.