For as long as he aimed the gun out into the yard, its muzzle engaged in the sway of a teenage couple at the end of a high school dance – tentative and slow – so that, when the answer came, and a ripple began around the middle of his spine and ended with his finger contracting against the trigger, odds were good that he would not have done any damage to the voice’s owner even if the result of the reflex had been more substantial than a his of metal against metal that proved his theory of the weapon being out of commission. Nevertheless, he released the grip he had on it with his right hand and swung it down with his left, startled by a bleary idea of what would have happened had he been wrong and a bullet had waiting in the barrel.
The sky reacted to his poor judgment with a growl that defied his interpretation. He waited for it to fade, then digested “It’s cold out here” before answering.
“What the Hell.”
Not a question, at its core. More raw exclamation: a too-loud construct of anger at the intrusion and indignation at this absurd commentary on the weather, balanced atop a foundation turned shaky by competing surges of adrenaline and relief that resulted from not having fired a gun.
His follow-up was somewhat more meaningful, though no more welcoming: “It’s not that cold. Who the fuck are you?” Conventional wisdom might have advised against confronting strangers who lurked in unfamiliar places in the night. He was inebriated enough not to care.
The sky reacted to his poor judgment with a growl that defied his interpretation. He waited for it to fade, then digested “It’s cold out here” before answering.
“What the Hell.”
Not a question, at its core. More raw exclamation: a too-loud construct of anger at the intrusion and indignation at this absurd commentary on the weather, balanced atop a foundation turned shaky by competing surges of adrenaline and relief that resulted from not having fired a gun.
His follow-up was somewhat more meaningful, though no more welcoming: “It’s not that cold. Who the fuck are you?” Conventional wisdom might have advised against confronting strangers who lurked in unfamiliar places in the night. He was inebriated enough not to care.