It's All Your Fault.

He practiced drawing the gun from his shoulder holster again, a quick, smooth movement.

He placed the single-stacked pistol back into the holster, and zipped up his baseball jacket. The cartridges felt comforting pressed against his hips, securely taped in place.  

He picked up his sign, his eyes straying over the sprayed on words, sending a wave of revulsion through his body. He felt unclean, disgusting.

It’s all for a better good. He reassured himself repeatedly, trying to shrug off the sense of filth that clung to him as he held onto the sign.

He pulled his cap on, and donned his shades. He was ready. With a last look around his house, he slipped on his shoes and opened the door. There was no going back now.

All along the journey there, on the bus, walking on the sidewalks, people would catch sight of his sign and many smiled at him, or gave him a thumbs up. Someone came up to him to express her gratitude for his support, for being a part of the movement. Each time, he’d tense, and try to avoid their gaze. He didn’t want to talk to anyone like them. The dirty, plague-carrying ones or the idiots who were on their side.

He turned the corner and they came into view. In the middle of the square, there they all were. His heart pounded, and he felt his palms turn slick with perspiration.

He felt a rush of hatred and scorn that sickened him, and energized him at the same time. His could feel his chest filling up with anticipation, trepidation, and joy at what he was about to achieve.

There they were, the yellow-faced pests. All crowded together in one tight area, ripe for the picking.

He quickly settled his focus on the girl on the platform, spurting nonsensical babble into the loud hailer.

“We are not a virus! We will not be treated like a virus!” The crowd roared along with her, echoing her every word like the brainless fools they were.

“We are people! We are humans! Fight the virus, not the people!”

He felt his guts churn with anger and hate at the slogans they spewed. He moved closer to the stage, ignoring the greetings and nods of approval of the people in the crowd.

Having amped up the crowd, the girl stopped chanting, and invited someone on to the stage.

An Asian lady and an elderly woman stepped onto the platform. The lady shared details of a recent attack on her mother, and he saw the bruises on the elderly lady’s face.

He felt a twinge of discomfort and sympathy, which surprised him. They deserved it, he knew. But there was something distinctively unjust and revolting about attacking a frail, elderly person. He couldn’t help but feel disdain towards the attacker. A coward. I’m no coward. I don’t target only the weak, frail ones. I’m a proper cleanser. I take on the big leagues. I’m no coward.

Someone else went on the platform to share her story. His heart leapt to his mouth, as he thought he recognized his daughter. But it wasn’t her. It was just another stupid fool, a bleeding-heart local who had decided to join the cause of the Asians. Deluded, stupid.

She spoke about losing her boyfriend, who was stabbed on a bus ride home. She teared up, recollecting their hopes, dreams, and all of the good and kindness that he possessed. He listened, and forced himself to be impassive. Convinced himself that he couldn’t be shaken by silly stories. By sentimental fools. That she may have thought the world lost a good person, but in truth, they had rid themselves of another virus, another source that would infect their amazing country.

The next person went onto the platform. He was an eloquent, middle-aged man, who shared that he was of Japanese ancestry, and was born in this great country. He waxed lyrical about how if the virus were to be blamed on the Asians, then all the past plagues and epidemics should also be blamed on the others. What of the Spanish flu? What of the small pox, from the European settlers? What of the yellow fever, originating the Carribean? If they all targeted and villainized the people and not the virus, how could they fight together as a world, as the human race, to overcome these pandemics?

He scoffed quietly, unmoved. It didn’t matter to him who caused the past epidemics. It didn’t matter to him how many died from other viruses. It only mattered to him what he had lost, from this virus. And the Asians caused it. They were to blame.

The man continued on, asking for people to bond in the midst of adversity, to fight together to overcome the virus, to not play the pointless blame game that helped with nothing, that only caused more misery and pain.

He heard, but did not listen. After all, he could not consider removing blame from the equation. It wasn’t a remotely acceptable situation. They were to blame. The Asians.

If they weren’t to blame, if he couldn’t charge them with the responsibility of all that had happened to him, what did that mean for him? His mind automatically switched focus from this train of thought.

He waited patiently, not yet seeing the person he needed to see up on that platform. The lady who had organized this whole protest. This whole pointless, ridiculous exercise. She was the one who needed to be stopped.

Zoning out of the speech, he couldn’t stop his mind from flitting back to the previous thought. If they weren’t to be blamed, what would that mean? It would be his fault, and that wasn’t it. It could not be his fault that his wife left him, took their daughter with her. It couldn’t be his fault for losing his job. What else could he have done? Memories of his wife’s urging, for him to upskill, to work towards the possibility of finding another job in another industry, seeped into his mind. He remembered the fear he had felt, the sense of uselessness, the anger he had felt at the thought of giving up on all he had known to do in his life, at the thought of starting afresh, from the bottom, in a strange industry. He pushed the memories aside. He shouldn’t need to do that, he wouldn’t have needed to do that, if not for the Asians.

They were to blame. If not for them, he would not have been in that state. He would have been mentally well. He wouldn’t have hit his wife then. For the first time, in their 8 years of marriage. He wouldn’t have hit her the subsequent times as well.

He had lost his family. He had lost his job. He was alone, living in the squalor and mess of his uncared for apartment. He may lose his place too. The sense of helplessness, the fear, combined to refuel his rage.

It was their fault, he thought, and he clung to the hatred. Deep down, his mind, his being, understood that he couldn’t think otherwise. He couldn’t entertain the possibility of taking responsibility for his situation, of how he could have done things differently. The vestiges of his conscience, the morals he had learnt grasped futilely at him. He could not let them in. He could not face the alternative. It would kill him. He would break.

Instead, he would break them. He would kill them.

He looked up, and the target he had come for, was getting on stage.

He walked yet closer to the platform, and unzipped his jacket.

(Just in case it wasn’t clear, I would like to clarify that I am NOT for racism. I’m Asian myself, and deeply concerned by the racist attacks reported in the media. I wrote this to express my thoughts about the matter.)