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Protection Problems

Jon Brunette

    “Someone will kill us with that pistol of yours.” After my wife spoke, I promised to throw my firearm off the old brick footbridge in the wooded lot behind our property. She shook her head firmly. “I don’t want it in the house anymore,” she said.
    I did what I proclaimed. Beyond my house, I walked through the thick, weedy acreage that touched three townships like a massive quarantine. I wobbled the pistol inside my beefy hands until I finally dropped it. Like a brick, the metal object plummeted quickly off the small bridge onto the muddy bottom.
    Initially, I bought the pistol because our neighbors were robbed and beaten. Slowly, they had recovered. Like anyone in the country, my wife and I could find worse luck. With the handgun, I could always kill invaders like a black bear would around baby cubs. Without the firearm in my possession, anyone could touch my wife, who looked as lovely as any jewel and held a value that couldn’t compare. Like I had warned, anyone could indeed murder my wife or me. Still, I would never touch another firearm.
    When I returned home after a lengthy walk in the woods, I found Lisa slumped forward, her small mouth pursed, like she had fallen asleep. Her hands touched her cheeks lightly, with her elbows on her knees. As peaceful as she appeared, I told her that I had ditched the pistol. It wouldn’t harm us anymore. When I shook Lisa, I found her body limp and her skull bloody.
    Confused, I walked around our comfortable house like I looked upon it for the first time and found barren rooms without television units, without the fancy chrome stereo that had occupied my time in the basement, and lastly, without the sparkly diamonds that Lisa had always worn publicly. Although it hardly seemed important, three expensive vases, which had held three equally fluffy bushels of flowers, had been broken onto the kitchen floor.
    With my handgun, I could protect anyone. Like my wife had announced earlier, I wouldn’t need it anymore.

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