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This writing was accepted for publication in the 108-page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/paperback book “Blackbirds, Lyrebirds, WeaverBirds” cc&d, v340, the 12/23 issue Order the 6"x9" paperback book: 
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A Long Night
Bill Tope
The ancient, white-whiskered man reposed, forlorn, in his living room, a snifter of brandy gripped against the arm of his easy chair. It had been an unbearably long night and he sat, still in his red suit, with his black boots up on an ottoman. His tasseled cap lay on the nearby sofa, the red fabric moist from melted snow. The night, he knew, had only begun.
The excursion through the chilly, bracing night air had been exhilarating, as always, until which point that he cruised over the small town, on the outskirts of the big city. There he found the townfolk gathered in the cemetery for a moonlight vigil.
A handful of children had fallen victim to a school shooter. Their grade school was desecrated by gunfire from an assault rifle—an early Christmas gift to a young, disaffected man from the high school. He had been taking vengeance for some imagined slight and the children had wound up in his gun sights.
Police were summoned and the high school killer, like his young victims, was shot dead. News conferences were held; politicians offered up thoughts and prayers up to the victims’ families and then told their base that gun reform measures were premature; that the investigation was ongoing; that later, cooler heads would prevail. That this was the price to be paid for a free society.
The old man pulled from his pocket letters he’d received from children, read requests for assault weapons and sniper scopes and the like. He spotted one from the brother of a child killed in the recent shooting. “The answer to a bad man with a gun,” read the letter, scrawled in purple crayon, “is a good man with a gun.” The old man swilled more brandy, grabbed his bag, which was loaded with AR-15s and ammo, and trekked back out to his sleigh, longing for the days of GI-Joe, Barbie, and the Easy Bake oven.
