"I can't do that!"
"You have to, you have no choice. He's beyond redemption."
"But I just can't..."
Once again he noticed her strategically torn shirt - and squirmed in suppressed desire. How could he give up someone like her? The idiot had it made! I can't think straight with her sitting next to me. She's a firestorm!
"Look at him. Decide for yourself. Tell me what you see through that scope thing of yours."
Squinting, he closely observed Miguel Norton as he sat motionless and agape on the on the side of a rocky, unforgiving cliff. And she was right. Every instinct told him to shoot. A mercy kill. But he didn't have the strength to live like that yet.
"Maybe, he’ll come back..."
"He's never coming back. It's been three years now. He completely lost his mind in '09."
"Look, he's saying something! I can read lips. 'I want to come home.'"
"There's no home for him to come to. I divorced him in early 2010. There was just no living with him anymore. He's a wild animal, a mad dog. You got your AR-Fifty rifle and your badge, we're in the middle of nowhere, just shoot."
"It's an AR-Fifteen, not Fifty," he weakly protested.
"Let me look through that thing." As she leaned over to peer through the scope, her body pressed against his, lighting his fire, swaying him with thoughts of long lost comfort, of dragging him from the desert to life's oasis. Jesus, how was that guy ever with a woman like this?
"You must be blind. His face and arms are covered in scabs. He's disintegrating right before your eyes."
"I just figured he always looked like that."
"No, he was never like that. It only started with the breakdown in '09. He's living death and you won't do a thing about it."
"He's just sitting out there, not harming anyone."
"He's harming himself."
"But that's OK!"
"Is it?"
He wanted to ignore her, to blow her off and dismiss her annoying words. But the possibility of having her roped him in and he did not wish to be unbound.
"Well, no, it's not alright, I guess. I just don't know a bullet is the answer."
"I do."
She wasn't giving him any openings. And then Miguel Norton made it even more difficult.
"What is that he's doing...oh, shit..."
Miguel in a ghostly hand gesture, grabbed himself in vacuous futility to find relief. Miles and miles from any human soul, he must climax from memory - memories of her?? Will I find myself doing that tonight if I can't have her? Damn him!
"You're a guy. Are you proud of that?"
"NO!" he protested too much.
"Then I don't see what's stopping you."
"I'd like to, OK? I'd love to pull this trigger right now and put that creature out of his misery. I really, really want to give in..."
"Then do it!"
A shot fired - but he had not the heart to aim. Miguel took no notice in his pathetic state.
"I missed."
"No shit."
"He's falling asleep now."
"He can't sleep. Who the fuck could sleep out there? If he sleeps more than a couple of hours at a time the coyotes will eat him alive. Just shoot him before that happens, please."
Miguel tossed and turned in violent dreams, even to the point of stirring dust up into the air. I can't play God. I admit I see no hope, but I just can't. She keeps pressuring me! Who does she think she is?
"Let me ask you something. What do you think he would say if he could hear you right now? Listen to how much you hate him. He hurt you, I get that. And I'll tell you he was a certain idiot to have lost a woman like you, no fucking doubt. But let it go! Why do you need to take revenge so bad? Is it because you still have feelings for that miserable shit out there? Come on, tell me what he'd think if he could hear you talking like you did just now!"
Her face was honest in its pain. "He'd think I was his friend."
Miguel's only friend, it was obvious to see. She the only person left knowing him. His pointless agony hounded her, invading her life at the most unexpected of moments. She was thinking of him when she should be thinking of her new man. He'd taken a piece of her out there on that godforsaken ridge. They'd scaled mountains together she might never scale again - a permanent dark cloud over her life.
"I can't do this, lady, no matter how much I want you. You're just going to have to shoot him yourself. I can't get caught up in this. There's too much about myself I don't want to know."
"Just go over there and get a good look at his face. Then tell me he should live. That's all I ask."
"Are you crazy? I couldn't climb to that ledge in a hundred years!"
"Know what he would say? He'd say any idiot could do it."
She'd knocked all the fight out of him. He handed her his rifle, giving up all hope of having her. He walked away with fires doused, his head cold sober and clear, feet not touching the ground. He'd be in his car soon, driving back to his apartment in the city where his madness could blend with the city's madness. Later, he'd head out to the bar and spin stories of this crazy woman no man would want. He'd turn the listening patrons against her before returning home to face the truth of his empty bed.
He was almost to his car when the shot rang out. He was OK with it, she was Miguel's friend - his only friend. He dare not turn around. He could hear her desperate sobbing, drowning in a pool of tears. He felt no regret. Hope God's happy with this cruel, dying planet of his.
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