The Gun

I awoke today with a clear memory of it. Furniture of sorts that hung silently on the wall in all seasons. A gun.

It was my father’s, like everything else that I remember and fit the rustic decor of the room around it.

He used it for target practice and I heard the sharp sound it made and how
the spent shells of used bullets hit the cold wooden floor around him.

The thing about guns is their availability. At hand, at the ready, waiting for an unexpected moment of heat.

Or maybe just for hunting trips when it was,and is, legal to cull the deer
annually up North in New Hampshire or Maine on cold, crisp, dark
mornings.

My father and both brothers in colorful gear to avoid being a target themselves set off for designated
grounds to bag a big buck for our gaping GE freezer.

They returned triumphant with posed photographs of their kill and themselves,

stories of sitting up in an Apple tree waiting for deer to come to eat the fermented fallen fruit.

And ,of course, the butchered meat.

On the day I recall vividly, the telephone rang as he plated a venison steak and set it on the table. I wandered
out the back door into the yard and while he was distracted, my cat,Snowball, hopped up for a taste.

I saw her run from the house and himself following gun in hand. I heard it’s shots!