World to his back and sky to his front, he lays in a field. Pistol aimed to the clouds.

Each shot feels as if it takes part of the pain with it. Tearing out of him with its thunderous violence, streaking into the heavens far away from here.

If there’s a place where these screams can go and I’ll never hear them again, he thinks, these bullets seem fit to deliver them.

The chamber rotates, the hammer falls, and the world erupts once more. Six bullets now, up there past the clouds, carrying his sins faster than the speed of sound. Furious angels rushing to tell God what they saw him do.

He feels the weight of the metal in his hand, suddenly heavy. It falls, hitting the grass with a dull thud. Hot, hard metal on soft, cool earth. The incongruity does not escape him and he laughs to himself – which, of course, brings him back to reality.

The weightless feeling is gone and he feels heavy; heavy in every way a man can feel heavy; his tongue thick in his mouth and the creases at the sides of his eyes stinging.