Recovered from a 3.5″ floppy beside a Brother WP-100L, October 1989. Journal #48 is the final entry in the series.
Robert has the pistol. We are four. The rule is one bullet, one spin, one pull. I have set the word processor up on the corner of the desk so I can record as it happens. The keys on this machine stick under any pressure. I had it serviced last spring and it came back worse. A writer who would not use a night like this should find another trade.
The lamp is pooling yellow on the blotter. The clock on the mantel is louder than it has any right to be.
Robert loads the gun with a single bullet and spins the chamber. I think the pistol is a Saturday Night Special, but I’ll ask later. Rob puts the gun to his head, makes a weak joke, and laughs at it. He is still laughing when he pulls the trigger.
Click.
His smile stays in place, only easier now.
Jane is next. She closes her eyes tightly. The gun is pressed to her temple, and she squeezes the trigger in slow motion. Her teeth clench harder as her finger tightens, as if all the muscles in her head have joined in.
Click.
When she opens her eyes, she looks as though she might faint.
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I was leaning on the keyboard without realizing it. The stuck keys again. I’ll correct it when I copy this into my permanent journal.
Stanley has the gun now. He is not pretending. His hand is shaking hard enough that the barrel is tapping against his skull. He tries once. His finger will not go. He tries again. A sound comes out of him I have heard only once before, from a dog on the side of the road.
Rob lowers Stanley’s hand and tells him it is fine.
Stanley is apologizing through it. I won’t let the others read this, but I am trying to decide whether his fear is cowardice or information. I think it is information. The kind I am not absorbing.
It’s my turn now. I’ve asked Jane to pull the trigger for me. I want my hands free to record my emotions.
I thought I’d be frightened, but I’m not. What I feel is closer to excitement. Mountain climbers must feel something like this when they face the steepest drop. Come to think of it, that wouldn’t make a bad story. A climber whose love of the mountain becomes a kind of hunger. I could use McKinley. A metaphor for something vast and indifferent. A man drawn upward until he no longer cares whether he is ascending or simply being consumed by it.
Jane is raising the gun now. The barrel looks wider than I expected. She is smiling, but not at me. At the absurdity of it, I think. Or maybe at the relief of having her turn behind her.
I still don’t feel fear.
Only a sharpening. A sense that everything has narrowed to this one instant.
Her finger is tightening now.
I want to remember this sound.
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