The Comfort of the Doomed

It's funny that death is so easy. There one second and gone the next.

You'd think that a rich, full life wouldn't snuff out as quickly as it does.

Maybe that's why people are so afraid of dying. Because in the end, we all go the same way. In the end, our bodies fail us and the weight of life is much heavier than the weight of death.

Sure, people hang on, but when they let go--and they always do--Death is ready for them.

He takes them in half a blink; no matter how hard they hung on, no matter how many years they lived.

The man died the same way they all do. The same way we all will.

If his life had been any good, maybe he would have cared when the bullet struck his chest. Maybe he would've cared when it ripped through his skin and carved into his heart and maybe he would've cared that his heart had stopped pumping blood.

Maybe he would've cared that he was dying.

Yes, Death was coming for him; the world was slowing down and his vision was fading.

But he was bleeding out and he didn't care because how was it that mere seconds ago, his fingers had moved over smooth metal, the feeling a comfort in the roughness of his hand.

How was it that mere seconds ago he was aiming that gun at cowering hostages, huddled together in front of the teller desk, each of them wide eyed and panic stricken.

How was it that mere seconds ago, he had watched his partner--another man only in it for the money--take the teller into the vault and force her to fill duffel after duffel with the one thing that everybody wanted, the one thing that could save you from everything but death itself.

When he was six years old his mother took him to the zoo. The day was sunny and the summer wind was blowing and the animals kept looking at him. He had grinned whenever they did and turned back to look at his mother. She always smiled sadly back at him.

His brain was giving out from lack of circulation and he wasn't thinking so much as unraveling.

Minutes ago, they had pulled the black masks over their heads. They only nodded at each other because it's not like they were friends. It's not like one would mourn the other. What was the point in pretending?

He was 10 years old and hospitals were the worst because they smelled like death. Dad kept telling him that mommy was in heaven, but how could she be in heaven when she was supposed to be here? God would never be so cruel.

Heaven is a comfort to the dying. He knew it then.

Minutes ago, they had walked through the bank doors together, weapons under winter coats, hoods pulled up so that you couldn't see their faces.

You know how banks are. When it's hot they always have air conditioning turned to the lowest setting and when it's cold the heating is almost akin to suffocation.

It was cold out and he hated the cold but he hated the suffocation more.

It didn't matter now, though, because he wasn't suffocating like everyone else, instead he was dying.

He was 15 and he didn't go to school because what was the point? He was 15 and he boarded the school bus in the morning for show but he never went in. He was 15 and instead of geometry he went to get high in the backwoods.

He was 15 and his mother was dead and he thought to himself.

My life will always be falling apart.

And he had been right, because minutes ago he had pulled that coat off.

Minutes ago he had raised the gun in the air and minutes ago the silence of the bank was shattered as he aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.

When he was 17 he ran away. He realized later that he had never had any idea where he was going. He still didn't, for that matter.

They say life moves fast and maybe they're not wrong.

But death moves even faster.

Because the light was fading and he wasn't bothered by the suffocation anymore.

It's not like he would need the air much longer.

He was 18 and he was living on the streets and he could've done anything he wanted, despite the law. But it was still exciting. It was still exciting to go into a gas station and be able to buy cigarettes without anyone wondering if the law could stop him from doing so.

It was funny to him now, that he was so excited about those cigarettes. Funny that he had been so in tune with the law back then.

Funny, because minutes ago, the bullet from his gun had shattered the glass of the teller station.

Funny, because that bullet had grazed the arm of the perky blonde teller behind the desk, and funny because her face had gone from tedium to painful fear in a matter of seconds.

Nineteen. It's the in between age, the almost an adult age. The age in between exciting growing up things except nothing happens at 19. He could never remember what he did the night of his nineteenth birthday, because the alcohol that he wasn't supposed to be drinking stole the memories and never gave them back. He could never bring himself to mind their absence.

He wondered what would happen to these memories after his chest stopped moving. Would they dissipate into oblivion? Would they become a tangle of ideas in someone else's head? Or would he keep them? Alone together in the never ending void that was seconds away?

Would the sound of gunshots into silence follow him like a lost dog? Would the fear of innocence stick with him like a bad rash?

Because seconds ago he had pointed the gun at that innocence and demanded it get down. Demanded it get on the floor, to not make a sound.

What would happen to the power that rushed through his veins when he was gone?

He was alone on his twentieth birthday. He was alone and he couldn't stop thinking about his mother and that soft smile she had given him that faraway day at the zoo. He was alone pondering the inevitable passage of time and thinking about how death would take us all one of these days. He was alone and he wasn't a teenager anymore and he didn't know what it meant or where he would go from here.

It's funny when you realize that time dooms us all in the end.

Funny, because he was running out of it.

Funny, because he was lying on a bank floor and his blood was pooling underneath him and the world was fading. If he could, he would have laughed right then.

But he couldn't because minutes ago the sniper across the street had set up his gun. Minutes ago he had taken careful aim.

He had heard the distant wailing of sirens and the earpiece he listened to intently had given that order. His least favorite one, but he had to do his job.

Take the shot.

Minutes ago, the bullet had left the gun. It had hurtled through the windows of the bank and rained shattered glass on the entryway.

It had pierced the man's skin and dug its way into his heart and he had bled out in seconds.

It's funny, because seconds ago he was breathing and then he was not.

Yes, it really is funny that death is so easy.