Twelve Shots

There were twelve shots before I died. Flashed before my eyes as if the shutter were opening then and there. Twelve shots for the price of one. In the end that was all it was. You only have one shot and I had it. I could say they would haunt me for the rest of my life, but that would be ironic. Although they took away the shock of the action - a gun fired out of the blue into the base of my spine - they left me with a feeling of regret, deeper than any pain could be felt; the feeling that I had finally lost and there would never be another chance.

The soft down of a puppy rests alone and large eyed in the centre of a rug. It has been playing and has the beginnings of looking tired. The rug is technicolour, a reminder of decades passed, but the walls are contemporary, perhaps just ahead of their time.
In a brown leather jacket I rest on a fence post that would be more at home by a country stile than a garden gate in the city centre. A tiny garden that was never really welcomed into the smog of the city. I look tired; worn and weary after a long day at someone’s office. I never quite fitted in, the brown jacket jarring with the shine of patent shoes.
A sunset shows the most beautiful picture I ever took. Although the lens is dirty and my finger is in the corner the shot is immaculate. Gold and red and blue mix in the sky and it is aflame, bursting with energy and potential. Somewhere in the distance I hear you calling me back from the edge.
Friends, smiling and smoking cigarettes in my pokey city house. We drink from cans, not glasses and the butts are left to soak into the remaining beer to be tried again in a few hours with a splutter and a cough. We all had nicknames then: Moon, Shakey, Leaner and me. Seemed odd when someone called me by my proper name.
More friends. This time not so happy. In dark shirts we all stand at a graveside trying to look on the bright side of life. He would have wanted us to be happy for him, but we can’t quite do it. The raining is pouring on our half concealed hip flasks and our fags are getting wet. There is a small boy with us, looking over his shoulder at some imaginary escape route; he had no way out.
There is a black shot in the middle of all the images. It is not entirely dark, a fire is burning bright in the centre. Everything else is blacked out by the illumination of the flames.
A shot that I hate. A shot of you. Glamourous in red, but without your shoes, you are smiling at the camera as if you have a dirty secret. You hair is long and a cigarette is slipping from its holder onto the carpet. There’ll be a fire if it drops. I cannot look at your face, I focus on your feet; glossy red toenails appear to wiggle at me as they skip down the grass. I cannot look at you.
I tried to be artistic once and here is one of my shots. A peacock blue flower sits in the centre of a large pile of ash. The beauty takes over the dirt. But now it seems more like the other way round, ugliness is bringing destruction.
My first photo is of a balding baby, wrinkled face and stained babygrow. There are no arms holding me, I rest in a crib all alone. My fists are clenched and I scream at the life I have been pushed into.
Snow on the ground as I push the car onto the road. I have shovelled all morning and I am red in the face, shining with the bitter cold. The car is green, to match the grass I never see. I can see people looking out their windows at me as if I am crazy. They don’t know that if I don’t see you I will die anyway. Who took the picture I’m not sure. Perhaps it is not a picture after all.
School photos are always the worst. Grinning like a toothless hag I have strightened my tie and cleaned up my face to uphold the illusion that school is a nice place to be. A place where you get homework and they give you books to read; not punches from the boys and cracks round the head from the teachers. The uniform was blue. My brown eyes never suited it, but it wasn’t enough to put me in a school where I really belonged. There would never be enough until it was too late.
The last image is almost too fast to see, but it seems to be something I have never seen before. A disinfected place of green walls and people with masks. I hear beeping and shouting, the light are flashing red red red. I am lifted and I think this is it, the last shot I will see, as I hear the words, “Clear!”