You are sitting in a room. There are no doors nor windows. Now before you question how you get out of this room, first ask yourself how did you get in there in the first place.
You could have taken a bus. Drove there. Caught a flight. Skipped a heart beat. Parachuted into it with the crowd roaring and the flashbulbs going off. You could have sleepwalked your way there, teleported in, followed a hunch. It all seems impossible, in this room.
You can’t describe it. It is eerily quiet, but the sound of everything- your thoughts, your movements, your choices, the world falling apart- is deafening. It is pitch black and blinding white. It is cold. It is hot as hell. It is unbearably so.
There is a table in this room. Nothing unusual, something you would describe as made out of “wood” rather than chestnut, pine or huang huali. On top of this table is a gun. Not a pistol, not a revolver, an AK-47 or one that dispenses hot glue- it is a Gun. In all senses of the word. (Joke.)
There is a person in this room, facing you. It doesn’t matter if the person is lying down, standing up, sitting down, humming a tune or bouncing a ball. That person is there. That person is the person you love, and you realise this, suddenly, as you are aware of the choice you have to make.
You have been in this room for such a long time that you don’t understand the meaning of it all, the table, the gun, the love of your life. You have left this room somehow, and found your way back in. The person on the other side has left this room somehow, and found their way back in. In that instant you wonder about the choice between a parachute and a submarine. In that instant you wonder if the person opposite you is thinking the same thing.
There is a gun in your hand. As you grip its cold, hard, unforgiving surface and feel its weight, its power, a thought is formed within you. A thought wrought of the pain and pleasure and the meaning of it all. A thought combining love and hate and hurt and peace. You don’t know what to do; and you don’t know why it is you that holds the gun, and not the other way round.
“The gun is in your hand.” A whisper, barely audible.
