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excerpted from
The Will
a short story
by Andrew M. Reichart
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...A note on the stair read: Out to dinner, back in an hour. Nurse Everage.
I opened the door. I'd only seen my grandfather in this room once: four years ago, when he showed me the old pistol in his nightstand. "In the unlikely event of a burglary," he had declared. He switched something on it and a metal plate popped into his hand, followed by a zigzag-shaped spring and a bunch of bullets. He handed the pistol toward me. I shied away at first. "Come on, boy," he said. "It's just a tool." He took my hand, wrapped it around the gun, and let go. In my nine-year-old hand it weighed more than I had anticipated. Far more than a cap gun. "It looks like a blaster from Star Wars," I said. "Model eighteen-ninety-six broomhandle Mauser," he said. "World's first automatic pistol. From the past, not the future." His voice lowered slightly. "Got it in Spain when I met your grandmother." "Star Wars isn't in the future," I said. "'A long time ago, in a galaxy--'" I recited, waving the pistol around. "Hey now," he said, swiping it back out of my hand. "That's not a toy. You coulda shot your grandmother in the next room." He pointed at the wall with his chin while holding the gun aimed at the ceiling, fingers safely outside the trigger guard. "I saw you unload it," I protested. He cocked an eyebrow at me. "And?" "You said it's just a tool," I said. "Deadly tool," he said. "Never point a gun at anything you don't plan to shoot." "Even if it's empty?" I scoffed. "You can't shoot anything with it if it's empty." "You never know," he said, levering the action and popping out the shell that had been hiding in the chamber. He held the bullet out to me, closing his hand around it when I reached for it. "Goof around all you want, Jack, unless it's life and death." I watched him reload the gun. He squeezed in the zigzag-spring and snapped on the metal plate. "Why did you give it to me, then?" I snarled. "Safety was on," he said with a wink. He showed me the safety, flicked it off and back on again.... |