Choked

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He opened his eyes. Stood up slowly. He hurt. Everything hurt.

He looked round. Took it all in. And knew what he needed.

A gun.

He knew where there was one. A double-barrelled shotgun, kept for bagging rabbits and clay pigeons.

But not today.

The locked cabinet where it was kept was simple to open. He held the gun in his hand, felt the weight, the heft of it, like he was balancing it against what it was capable of. Or had been capable of.

He took his eyes off the barrels and surveyed the room. The house had been wrecked. The furniture had always been carefully positioned, regularly cleaned. He could remember being told off for playing on it when he was younger. The antiques had been out of bounds. He was never to touch them, or else. The drumming-in of the consequences of such an act was one of his earliest memories of life in the house. He had grown up too terrified to do so. If one of his hands had accidentally brushed against a vase or a porcelain figurine, he had gone to bed that night in abject fear of some terrible but unspecified punishment.

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