Irrevocable: In an Instant.

In that one moment, it all changed.

It would never be the same. It couldn’t. There was no turning back.

Once it had been set in motion, there was no way for him to stop it. The point of no return. Irrevocable. Pulling the trigger and then wishing, as you spend the rest of your life behind heavy steel bars, that the bullet never left. Too late, damage done. There are no time machines nor magic DMC DeLoreans. This is real life.

He takes a deep breath. Tries to collect himself.

Time stops. Or rather, slows down. He thinks to himself how funny it is, in those final moments, how the powers that be press the slow motion button, bringing incredible acuity in those very moments he wishes could be scrubbed off of him. He sees and feels it all. His senses heightened. Perception elevated.

Breathing heavy, labouring for each breath, under the effects of his fully engaged sympathetic nervous system, he brings his hands up in front of his face in the brightly lit bathroom. His stubby calloused hands, palms up, fingers slightly spread and curled up to the heavens as if offering imagined piety, coated in that thin, sticky sheen. His loss plainly visible in his hands.

There is so much of it. It is dripping everywhere as he stands in front of the bathroom mirror, his panicked countenance, one he barely recognizes gazes back, eyes widened in horror at the sight of the incredible trauma.

How did this happen?

It was a terrible accident.

The events are etched clearly in his mind. It is his fault, he knows that. The blame is his own to bear. He will have to live with it, if he survives the fallout.

The moment he felt the sharp, slicing pain, he knew he’d made a mistake. That viscous fluid everywhere. It shouldn’t have felt like that. He knew he’d taken a big risk with his decision, but he never, in his wildest dreams, thought it would come to this. His life forever altered, perhaps even extinguished.

His girlfriend was due back in a couple hours, and for sure he would be dead.

He could only ask himself…

Why had he decided to use her special hair care products in the shower to wash his hair, the ones he knew were explicitly off limits? And how did he not notice he’d grabbed a bottle of Nair ™?

As the puddle of water, Nair ™, and hair grows at his feet, he knows there will be consequences.

He just doesn’t know what the final judgement will be.

Photo by Pablo Padilla on Unsplash