What We Need

The killer armed with the deadliest of guns finds his victim cowering against a bend in the wall which provides no shelter. They appear to be the same age, at some past moment may have had the same male dreams for their future. At this moment one will deprive the other of both dreams and future... What if the prized gun malfunctions and doesn't fire? The prospective killer and his prospective victim look into each other's eyes, and drop deep into the other's psyche. The killer feels the sear of pain which rushes through his target. And his mind is deluged by lacerating regret - his life has been severed, cut short, the final second of living is an immense cry of anguish. Oh, how he wishes the gun had discharged and demolished the man, and released him from such awareness... The victim sees a seething man overwhelmed with anger, and knows his grim eyes see past him into a mass of men just like him, all prospective victims. They are all the enemy because they are privileged, prosperous, undeserving. Oh, how readily he would surrender his store of privilege to have his term of life restored... What happens after these instant thoughts? Does the killer fix his gun, or does the gun fix itself, and blast the other? Or does the victim attack his killer, and in a paroxysm of fear and rage beat him senseless? Or in the stress of the moment do both men collapse, hit the ground hard, and lie moaning, both disarmed and helpless, the indifferent gun lying between them? And there they lie in an accidental peace, both alive, neither one the victim of the other... What we need is something to stall the violence - permanently.