Release

In room 23 in a run-down, seedy motel in Bakersfield, California sits a man on the small, surely dirty bed in his room he purchased for the night. He's naked, overweight, and sweating profusely in the fan-blown, dry desert air of the room, a .357 magnum in one hand, as he stares at the paper thin wall in front of him.

He leans forward to listen more intently to the sounds coming from the adjacent room. A man and a woman, from the sounds of it, mid-coitous, the head board of their rickety bed thumping in an almost rhythmic bump, semi-animalistic vocals searing through the paper thin wall in front of him.

He thought to himself it could come through said wall at any minute as the moaning and thumping intensified.

He slowly looked at the gun in his right hand, the handle starting to get slippery from sweat, and wiped it and his hand off on the bed sheet.

" Curiously heavy things, guns are.." he thought as he raised it to his right temple and pulled the trigger.

CLICK! Replied the .357 to his temple.

" What the fuck!?" he said to himself, knowing the gun was fully loaded. All six chambers with live ammunition.

He cocked the hammer back once more, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger again, the noise from the next room growing louder in his head.

CLICK! It retorted again to his temple.

Confusion set in on the naked, sweat-soaked man.

He opened the gun up to check the bullets..all still intact, as the noise from the adjacent room was reaching the point of causing the man to get even more angry and confused at this situation. Anger grew to fury and he raised the gun at the wall in front of him, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

BANG! It replied, and suddenly the noise in the next room stopped.

He looked at the hole in the wall, and listened intensely for sounds from the room he just shot at. Nothing came.

Minutes passed like hours as he listened. Still nothing.

He got up, walked over to the bullet hole in the wall and peered through it as well as he could, sweat stinging in his eyes.

And then he saw it. An arm hanging from the bed, and blood spatter on the wall and television.

He jumped back in surprise and regret as the reality of the situation set in on his troubled mind.

He sat back down on his bed again, still wet from sweat, raised the same gun to his head again, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger.

CLICK! It retorted once again, infuriating and puzzling the man yet again.

The phone in the room began to ring. He refused to answer, afraid of what it might mean.

He again, raised the gun to his temple, cocked the hammer and pulled the trigger.

CLICK! Again it resounded, sending the man into a state of panic and anger beyond anger.

The phone kept ringing, adding to the anxiety of his situation. "All I want to do is die!" he thought. And after 4 misfires, or what he thought were misfires had him completely perplexed.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK! Came from his door. Without a second thought he raised the gun at the door, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

BLAM! The gun replied, as he heard what could only be a body hitting the wooden walkway just outside his door.

He sprang to the bullet hole in the door, but could see nothing. But what he could hear was worse. Gurlgling, bubbling sounds of a person choking on their own blood.

"What the fuck is going on here!?" he said aloud to himself.

Again he opened the gun up, seeing two spent cartridges.

He was now in a mad state of fear, confusion, and seething anger at his current state of being, wanting only to end his own life, only yet having now 'accidentally' killed three people he did not know.

He closed the gun back up, cocked the hammer, raised it to his temple and pulled the trigger.

CLICK! Again said the gun! So he pointed at the ceiling and cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

BANG! It replied again, as the man noticed flashing lights coming in through the small window to his left.

"Why won't you just let me die!?" he screamed at the empty ceiling, at what I guess you could call his 'higher power.'

He tries again and again, police outside on a loudspeaker ordering him to drop his weapon and come out, hands behind his head.

Again and again...CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!

Finally, seeing no other way out he charged the door, gun in hand, opened it and raised it at the policemen outside his room.

Several gun blasts later....silence. The man had been shot three times and was down. Finally, he got what he wanted. Darkness closed in on the man, darker than a black steers' asshole on a moonless prairie night.

He awoke suddenly, a mass of wires springing from a mask that half-covered his face, only to find himself unable to move, or talk, or make his thoughts known at all. He could hardly move his eyes about, and blink occasionally, but try as he did, he couldn't move a muscle, limb, nothing. He was completely helpless.

" I'm supposed to be dead!" he tried to say, with no success.

" He opened his eyes!" said a female sounding voice. He could barely make out a blurry form looking over him.

"Vegetative state. He opens his eyes here and there, but as far as we can tell, there's nothing going on in his brain. Just instinctive reactions." A doctor in a fine, long, white coat said to the policewoman standing over him in his hospital room.

"What was the point of his actions? Why did he kill three people when it was clear he was trying to kill himself? People he had no connection to whatsoever? I just don't get it." the doctor asked the woman.

"Who knows? It's a fucked up world we live in doc." And she left.

He thought to himself, "NO! Not like this! All I wanted to do was die! I didnt want to kill anyone! Just me!" Thoughts that only he could make known to himself.

The doctor glanced back over his shoulder before closing the door. "Fucked up world, indeed." he thought looking at the human vegetable, kept alive by machines. Kept. Alive.