A Day ‘aComing

The officer stared down the barrel of his Glock at the homeless man, the laser point fixed and steady on the center of his forehead.

The homeless man sat back against a brick wall, a long, shaggy, peppery beard limply hanging on his sweat-stained white tee-shirt, muscle-starved arms dangling to the sidewalk by his side. He wore a greasy and tattered Chicago White Sox baseball cap, as if to accentuate his bad fortune.

The officer released the safety and pulled back on the hammer of his pistol, focusing on the fixed laser point. He hated what he had to do, but it was his job. How quickly things had escalated as his superiors had mandated that all of those who did not adhere to the State Protocols were to be either rounded up or eliminated. People such as this one fit into the latter category.

He was not sure why he had not pulled the trigger yet. He allowed his vision to drop an inch or two, though he had been told not to do so, and locked eyes with the man. The man was looking into his eyes, calmly, softly even. The officer looked back up for his target, but it had finally moved. Not far, but enough to agitate him. He centered it again.

A drop of sweat fell from the officer’s left eyebrow onto his cheek, and then finally onto the front pocket of his uniform. He felt it move the whole way down, a heaviness to it.

He took a deep breath, the homeless man still not moving.

The city high-rise buildings closed in upon them, refusing to allow the tiniest breeze passage through. The heat was almost unbearable, the street dogs hiding in whatever shady corners they could find. Th officer felt another drop of sweat begin its journey, retracing the path of the first.

That’s when he noticed that the man was smiling.

It was the damnedest thing, a slight smile that looked downright kind, as if he understood, as if he had no hard feelings. The man’s eyelids batted downward and then up again, in slow motion, too tired perhaps to do anything else. But it was the smile that got him, a smile that suggested a love that the officer could no longer conceive of in this insane world.

The officer almost felt sedated. Hypnotized. God he hated to do it, to simply follow the sadistic orders of an authoritarian state gone mad. Had they not promised that they cared about the people, all of the people? Had they not preached love and concern for all? And yet here he was, at their command, his gun’s laser fixed on this man’s head.

He sensed that his own life hung in the balance, perhaps even his eternal destiny. He breathed deeply once more. God how he hated it.

He felt his finger pull the trigger…