They say I was brave before it happened, whatever it was that happened. I can’t remember anything about it, but they say I ran into a barrage of bullets to pull a child to safety. And then I did it again. And again. They say I saved seven children’s lives, protecting them with my body as I removed them from the killing zone. It wasn’t the bullets’ fault that I reacted badly to their entry into my body. It was the fault of the broken minds of the boy who held the gun that shot the bullets. They say he was so out of touch with reality that he didn’t care if he killed hundreds or even thousands. I’ve been told so many times that he wasn’t worthy to be carrying a gun. Everyone around me says that boy deserves death. I have wondered why so many people think this since it was supposed to have been mental health issues that caused my wounds. But the world is very upset about the boy. Many have said they want to bring back the firing squad to carry out a death penalty for a villain like him. They say that would be a very worthy use of a bullet, to kill someone who wounded a true hero. I keep wondering how he can be a villain if it was a mental health issue that caused him to shoot me. But, of course, I say nothing. People don’t really want to hear that from me anyway.
I haven’t been outside since it happened. I’ve been in a bed watching a flake of paint as it slowly peels away from the ceiling so that it might drop to the floor. It seems like it’s taking forever. Time doesn’t really matter when you’re unable to move from your bed. It simply is. You know that each day will be unchanging. There’s a sort of supreme sense of safety that comes from lying flat on your back in a room where everything is always the same … except for that bleeping flake of paint. It’s the only thing that disturbs my peace. It’s the only thing that gives me entertainment. I watch in intense anticipation of the moment when it will finally drop from the ceiling. I imagine it floating down to the floor and being swept away with the dust. It hasn’t happened yet.
Several senators and congressmen and the president himself have come to see me while I’ve been stretched out on this bed. They all called me a hero and told me that justice would be done. After a while, I wasn’t really that interested in what they had to say. It was clear that they didn’t really care what I thought about anything. So I just zoned out and allowed myself to become enthralled with the movement of that paint flake. They talked about a harsher death penalty that would pierce the veil of the mental illness that led people to misuse guns in the way that boy did. I asked one of them if they thought there should be gun abuse laws that would save innocent guns from being misused in such a way that so hurt their reputations. The congressman looked a little flabbergasted at my question, like he wasn’t sure what the answer should be. Finally he muttered that guns may have deserved such protection, but they were brave and stood as a line of defense for our national safety and no law could interfere with their brave purpose. Before he even finished his sentence, I was back in my own world. I thought I saw a little movement, a little flutter from the edge of that paint flake that was so much more interesting than anything the congressman had to say.
Today I leave my haven of safe existence inside the room that never changes. I’m a little sad to leave before the paint flake falls. It’s like leaving before the end of the movie. I know I’ll be wondering if it ever happens like I’d be wondering if the girl really gets the boyfriend she deserves or the soldier actually makes it back from the dangerous mission. I guess I’ll never really know. I can imagine all sorts of endings.
I don’t have any family so I’m being taken to a nursing home where I can recover more fully. They say I may be able to walk again someday, but I think it’s just more fake news. Truth is truth; I don’t care what anybody says. The fact is that I won’t walk. I can only hope I’ll be able to somehow direct a wheelchair. I know they make chairs that might give me more mobility, but I don’t think they’re available to people like me. I don’t have medical insurance so that kind of chair isn’t available for someone like me. It will be okay. I’m safer in my bed anyway.
I don’t like my new bed. It’s hard and rubbery feeling, and it won’t allow me to sit up like the one in the hospital did. I recall those days in that bed with great appreciation. I probably never deserved to be in such a place. That’s the feeling I get from some of the nurses here. They seem to disapprove of the fact that a person with no medical insurance was in the hospital for such a long time, like I was perpetrating some kind of fraud or something. I tried to explain that I was taken there in an ambulance and I couldn’t very well walk out since I don’t have use of my legs or arms. They didn’t seem interested.
But there is one thing about my new home that I love. The ceiling is a veritable wonderland of paint flakes. They swirl and fall to the floor below. The stains on the ceiling are like a mighty canvas with tales to tell of adventures had by beautiful people who deserve only the best. The tales they tell are even better than the paint flake at the other place.
I’m told that I may not be here that long. I wish I wasn’t here at all. I was stupid enough to allow myself to get involved with the boys who misused guns. I made a bad choice and stepped into a bullet’s path, actually the paths of a few bullets. The way I stopped those precious projectiles was probably illegal. If I’d just stayed out of the way, they could’ve hit a more appropriate target. If I’d just left things alone, the gun would have been able to perform its just and fair purpose. The bullets surely would’ve ricocheted and hit the boy who misused and abused one of our greatest heroes, the American gun. That would’ve saved the state the cost of paying to execute him. I’m nothing but a burden. I have been nothing but a burden since I stepped into the path of those bullets. That’s how this place makes me feel, like I’m the thing that’s the source of all of America’s problems.
I ask an attendant why I’d been visited by the president if I was such a bad person. He tells me that I was not visited by the president; that he came only to observe me, a person whose existence was detrimental to the reputation of the good and great guns of America, a person who had become a burden on the state because of my own recklessness. I ask why the newspapers called me a hero. He says it was all a part of the fake news that had been perpetuated by the liberal elite of America. He says he was glad that most of the ones who wrote about me had been prosecuted for slander of guns and removed from the press corps. He says history is being written the way it should be … to make it clear that guns are good and anyone who misuses them or interferes with them is bad. I am bad because I was used by the liberal elites to try to take away the rights of guns and gun owners.
I don’t hear anything after that. He rattles on about guns and rights while I become enthralled by another paint flurry. It’s so beautiful when they fall in bunches, like being in a park on a winter day. They’re so much like a snow flake, each one a little different.
They’re moving me again. I can’t say I’m sorry. I don’t like my bed, and I guess I’m more interested in comfort than art. Even though the paint flurries are beautiful to watch, I’m hoping my new home will have a more comfortable bed. I’m sure I will be able to find something beautiful to watch once I get there.
I wait all day the day I’m supposed to leave. Finally the aide who called me a burden comes to move me to my new home. He’s a big guy. He says he doesn’t need a wheelchair to move me. He picks me up and walks with me out the front door. He takes me across the street to a lovely park. I haven’t seen trees in such a long time. It’s beautiful to see the fir branches waving in the wind. It’s a little cold, but I love the scenery around me. I chide myself for not realizing that this man is good enough to take me to see such beautiful things.
He places me on a park bench and I start to thank him. He moves away so fast that I barely have time to say thanks. He acts as if he doesn’t hear me. I assume they’re not moving me that day, and instead allowing me an outing in the park. He’s probably angry because he had to be the one to take the old burden I am to the park. Whatever his problem is, I don’t care. I’m surrounded with real trees and I can see the sun setting in the west. It’s so beautiful.
A young woman sits beside me on the bench. She smiles at me when she sees the joy that suffuses my face as I watch the sky turn pink. The sun dips below the horizon and she tells me she loves watching the sun set in the eastern sky.
I’m surprised. She seems like a smart woman so I hesitantly ask what she means.
She seems even more surprised than I am. She asks, in return, what I mean.
I explain that the sun sets in the west.
She becomes very offended and says I must have been listening to the fake news perpetuated by the liberal elite press and that she hopes the last vestiges of it will be destroyed by the president for life. She hotly proclaims that the president has made it very clear that the sun sets in the east and rises in the west, and that any half-way smart person knows that. She leaves in a huff.
It’s getting cold as night descends. Real snow begins to fall. It’s beautiful. I watch it cover me and I feel warm. I wish I’d been more understanding with the woman. Why does it matter if east is east and west is west? I wonder if truth really is relative. Is truth beauty and beauty truth? I watch the real flakes fall and decide that the real thing matters. I fall asleep watching real snow fall from the sky. It’s like I’ve walked out of a cave into the sun for the first time in my life. I understand truth and would gladly give my life to follow its path. I understand that the east is the east and the west is the west because they are what they are. Facts are facts. Truth is truth. I sleep.
The fact is the fact - The sun rises from the East and sets in the West, that all gunmen are crazy, and the guns are innocent. Anyone who tries to deny the fact has a political agenda that would benefit only themselves.
It is interesting that you would couch this story in terms of a person like me. People often think that I was paralyzed in war, by a car or swimming accident, or even polio, instead of during surgery. You are right about a lot of things but not about some others.
Unlike the protagonist in your story, I can move my arms and legs, but my movement is restricted so that I can't turn myself into other positions like most people do when they sleep. I get enough sleep, but I wake up several times in the night and have to be turned on my side and supported by a pillow on my back. Otherwise, I get very disturbed and my blood pressure goes up dramatically. My arms come up around my shoulders and I can't put them back down. But there are rare times in the morning when I do feel comfortable enough to want to continue to lie flat on my back and stare at the ceiling.
I have a light fixture with a ring of bronze base. Sometimes in half sleep state, that piece of metal becomes a worm or some other odd thing. I don't have any flakes of paint on my ceiling, but I do have a water stain from Hurricane Harvey last year that I haven't had painted over. While it has an interesting surreal to me, I haven't conjured anything up about it.
If anything, I want to get up and out of bed after about seven hours of off and on sleep with the morning light. Most nursing homes behave quite like you have described. Why I hire people to help me in my home rather than go to a nursing home or similar facility. Texas is a rich state. I believe, here in Texas, everyone in need can get a new wheelchair or scooter free every five years. I recently rejected a hospital bed in my home because it was too long and had a mattress that was foam, dug into me when I turned, didn't absorb my sweat and much less comfortable compared to my old cloth innerspring mattress.
I applaud you for using the story as a vehicle for describing how misplaced priorities have led to the kind of thinking where ignorant, but influential, people can manipulate masses to believe almost anything from paranoia. Is paranoia a mental issue? Damn right it is.
You have a way of twisting things and shifting blame to align with fake news and skewing the facts to blur the lines of distinction between heroes and villains.
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