Borderlands 5 by Unknown Page A

been a sense of hopelessness in her voice that James thought was more than the actress reciting her lines. He lived alone. What if he took a tumble and couldn’t get up . For several nights he had dreams of laying on the floor watching his body waste away. His throat was so parched that when someone knocked on his door he could utter no audible sound. A slow painful death. A painfully slow death.
    After the third such dream he purchased a devise that looked like a watch. Press a button and paramedics were promised to be at his house within ten minutes. He wore the damn contraption, but it made him feel terribly vulnerable. There might come a time he couldn’t live alone. The thought came unbidden, but once it had surfaced he couldn’t deny its truth. He would never impose on his children and move in with them even if they would take him. And retirement communities were euphemisms for nursing homes. He shuddered at the thought of strangers having to care for him. Some male nurse giving him a sponge bath or wiping up his excrement if he lost control of his bowels. A nursing home. Neve r. Suicide was preferable.
    Now, once again, he thought of purchasing a gun, but this time not to shoot his principal in revenge, but to end it all on his terms if life became too intolerable. A bullet in the head was preferable to a male nurse sponging his genitals. He wouldn’t even have to go to a target range. Gun to the head. Pull the trigger. The deed done. Let his children clean up the mess so they could sell the house.
    He thought the worst had passed and then he suffered from a toothache that wouldn’t allow him to sleep. He had put off going to the dentist for … well, for years. During more than four decades in the classroom he had no more than three cavities. Now that toothache that wouldn’t quit turned out to necessitate a root canal. The dentist had taken a full set of X-rays and chided James for his lax dental hygiene. Seven cavities, another root canal and the beginnings of gum disease made visits to the dentist a weekly affair for four months. Brush and floss he’d been told. He had been remiss in the past, but he didn’t want to visit the dentist anytime soon again so he followed the man’s instructions to the letter.
    After the last dentist appointment he had celebrated by purchasing a gun, not that he thought he would use it. There was a gun shop right next to a bakery he often frequented. He thought the two stores next to one another incongruous. Maybe that’s why it stood out to James every time he went into the bakery. It was like a church amidst a block of liquor stores and strip clubs. He’d peer into the window of the gun shop. Talk about weapons of mass destruction. There were enough guns in that one shop alone to cause an awful lot of havoc.
    So after he’d finished with his dentist, for at least the next six months, he decided to splurge and go to his favorite bakery. Instead he found himself walking into the gun shop. It was almost as if he were having an out of body experience. He was talking to the proprietor about what gun to purchase while a part of him had no desire for such a weapon. But, it was all so fascinating. For someone his age with the desire of self-protection a small firearm would most definitely suffice, he was told. James agreed, but he still wanted to hold a Magnum 357 out of curiosity. Though tempted to walk out and buy a Napoleon or canolli next door he found himself handing his charge card to the gun dealer. There was a seven day waiting period, but with no criminal record and only time on his hands James could be patient. Still, he remained in the store for another half an hour as the store’s owner showed him how to handle the gun and to clean it. He almost wanted to point it at the man behind the counter and tell him to go fuck himself with his waiting period, take his gun and walk out. Common sense prevailed and he left and waited. Looking at the bakery, as he left, he found he