Guns in Your Area

She unsheathed the firearm. In a combat glide, she toed closer to the fence. She crouched low in joggers, a white tee, and sneakers. She then sprang forth and the barrel of her weapon faced an opposite weapon.

“Howdy, neighbor,” Vechten Borrows called.

“Goddamn, Vech’, we almost blew each other’s heads off!” Kalida Dade laughed.

“Well have a wonderful day,” Borrows said.

“You do the same,” she said and holstered the gun. She went into her house. On every wall, rifles, shotguns, and pistols adorned them. Her husband, Fassbender cooked eggs sunny side up in his pajamas, a sling around his waist to hold his pistol.

“Good morning, darling,” Goff Dade said.

“Mornin’, babe,” they kissed. Their four year old, Saturn, sat down a plate of bacon and decaf coffee. He placed his pistol on the table.

“Good morning Mommy and Daddy!”

The boy polished off the bacon and washed it all down with the decaf.

“I’m off!” He took an Autobus to his kindergarten school.

“Ah, ah, ah, young man,” Kalida admonished.

Saturn handed over his firearm.

“Now, be a good boy!”

He jetted out the house like slick lightning.

“He’s beginning to get forgetful. We don’t want him to end up like the Parishson boy, do we?” Fassbender asked.

Kadida’s brow furrowed. “Of course not. That would be horrific. Just imagining it makes me feel spooked.”

“As long as we're not going to be bombarded by press and people poking their nose in our business, I’m fine,” Dade remarked.

“I know but with this new mandate—” Kalida protested.

“What happened to them was a fluke. There have been only three murders in the United States last year, and two of them were from stabbings. No one committed suicide with a firearm. They took pills or electrocuted themselves or something. The guns are good. We protect ourselves. What happened with Borrows is common. Hell, I would’ve shot my toe off if I didn’t have this smartgun system.”

“I hear you talking. I just don’t want it to be like in the history books. Mass shootings? What the hell was this country like a hundred years ago?”

“Three hundred years ago, they called it the Wild West. It was similar to the time period that you talk of but the difference is that people thought they were enlightened during the era where bodies were dropped in night clubs, schools, churches, theaters, concerts, and grocery stores, among a whole host of others,” Dade added.

Kadida cleaned her weapon while she chewed on her egg. She used a solution and toothbrush, careful not to get on her plate.

“You know, if they had thought of this decades ago, just think of how many lives could have been saved,” she mentioned.

“I know,” Dade sipped a strong coffee. “I think the move to arm everyone four and up and teachers at the schools and other venues and locales,” he replied.

“I don’t know. It’s just that I think we still could be better. There are the terrorist attacks. The attempts, at least. I don’t even look at our water system the same,” Kadida admitted.

“There’s no way that we can quantify the amount of blocked attacks. We can only hold the fact that self defense begins with the self,” Dade observed.

Kadida sighed. “I know, but—”

“But what, K? Fadden? Is that what you are talking about? He was too precious for this world anyway. And what did his death do? Push the amount murders to six that year? Saturn doesn’t even remember Faddy. He couldn’t have been more than four months old when it happened. If it’s alright with you, we should keep it from him for as long as possible.”

“You know your brother was shot and killed right?” Seleka Frommer asked Saturn.

“I had a brother?” he asked incredulously.

“There’s a fat chance in him not knowing by now. The virtual social media sites, the Internet period.”

“We’ll sit him down, then. We’ll let him know that we’re going to protect him and he will be able to protect himself. I don’t want him growing up—”

“I know what you’re going to say….” Kadida replied.

“I’ve married a psychic.”

“I was saying I know that we both don’t want Saturn to grow up afraid of life because his older sibling was gunned down in bloody violence. That’s not going to be his life.”

Dade looked up and down and moved closer to his wife.

“We can tell him or he’ll come running in here shouting how everyone knows but him. It could be today.”

Saturn returned home with tears in his eyes.

“Margaret Thornburd said I had an older brother and he got shot and killed and and….”

“It’s alright, son. Come here,” Kadida said.

She brought him into the living room where his father had set up a portal into a video experience. It featured footage of Fadden running track, playing hockey, and shooting hoops. It showed him laughing and blowing out candles. Then, it showed him in a casket. Saturn looked on with a stare as blank as a sheet of unmarked paper.

“Okay. I see.”

The portal closed around them and they sat in the family room amongst shotguns and rifles.

“Buddy, we didn’t want to tell you until you were much older, but since you found out through your peer, we were pushed to give you that experience.”