237 Meters Per Second

And here we go. It’s twelve past 10 a.m., and I am about to finish my shift for today. Normally, it would end at midnight, but I was 15 minutes late because I decided to sit in the nearby park much longer than I usually do. 

Because of that, I’m now standing at the bar and about to catch a 33 mm copper bullet flying towards my forehead. There are only three of us in the bar right now. Well, technically one and a half. The guy who ordered whisky 10 minutes ago is, I guess, already dead. And the one who killed him is now pointing a revolver at me and has just pulled the trigger. Average revolver bullet flies at a starting speed of 237 meters per second, the bar isn’t very big—there’s approximately seven meters between us. Based on my calculations, the bullet that’s already left the gun will reach me in less than 0.1 seconds. Diagnose —instant death. 

Seven meters.

Was this really my destiny? Dying alone in the no name bar because some local gangsters didn’t make it out. Come to think of it, why did I stay in the park for 15 minutes longer today? Where did that habit even come from? I guess it all started a year ago. There is this place in the park where little, shiny water flowers drift across a tiny pond. Their movements seemed very chaotic but the logic was always the same: they could never leave the pond. Did the pond trapp me too? I mean, I know that if I continue to stare at it I will definitely be late for work. But even if I leave the park, would I still escape the pond? I guess I was hoping that one day one of the flowers would eventually leave the pond, and I will finally get it, like Newton did with an apple. But it never happened.

Five meters.

I have been working in this bar for two years. I graduated from the faculty of law and justice, though I have always wanted to become a painter. And eventually after four years it turned out that it’s much harder to be successful in a profession that you hate with every cell of your body. But what if I decided to become a painter? Would I still end up in this bar as a customer, at this same exact moment and be killed anyway? What if yes. What if I was destined to die in my 30’s then what’s the point of questioning how I have spent my time. Could I have a better life? Yes, I could. Would it change the outcome? I don’t think so. 

One meter.

Maybe we’re all like that, stuck in our own ponds. Maybe no one ever really leaves. Maybe the choices I made were never mine to begin with. Maybe we’re all trapped, following invisible currents. All this time, thinking I could be something else, when all along, I was just another flower drifting toward the inevitable. The pond was never the trap. The trap was thinking that I needed to escape it. That is when I understood that…

Zero meters.