Couch

This story ends with us on the couch, held hostage by an inebriated man waving a 9mm like he is conducting an orchestra. Maybe that's where the story begins though, because everything that has happened up to this point loses significance the moment he decides to pull the trigger.

Music massaged our chest with its rhythm, bringing smiles to friendly faces. Just a typical college Friday, until the door busts in, the brass door knob pushing its way through the sheet rock as an exclamation point. The world loses coherence as bodies start flying from the end of fists, a horde of invaders making their claim on the apartment and we have no idea who they are. Chaos ebbs and flows until battle lines are drawn, opposing armies regrouping on the fringes to the realization that they kicked the wrong door in and the damsel in distress they were trying to save is not here...

You would think they would check the apartment number before starting a war, but they are not the only ones to make that mistake.

Peace returns to the land with a nervous chuckle, as they sheepishly file their way back through the breech roaming into the darkness with renewed conquest. Music resumes, in the absence of conversation as we all slump back on the couch contemplating the oddities of life. Breathing is interrupted once again as the door flies into the room, followed by the barrel of a gun.

Sweat slick fingers grasp, my future wife, if there is hope for a future. Pride and anger hang like a cloud across his eyes, here to defend the honor of the men who came to defend the honor of the missing damsel in distress...in the wrong apartment...

Pride and anger...bring out the fool in all of us.

Tense moments later he sits on the couch, a puddle of tears forming around his feet, as he thinks of what might have been.

And so do we.