The first time I remember this happening was when I was nine years old. My friend Johnny and I were playing in his backyard. The sun was just about to set and it was shining orange and red over his back fence. We were playing cowboys and Indians. Johnny was a cowboy walking down a deserted path and I was an Indian threatening to kill him.
We ran around the swing laughing and shouting. Johnny accidentally slipped on his own shoelaces and I ran over to where he was lying in the dirt. Pointing my finger at it, I shouted, "Dhamaka!" Collide!"
Suddenly his head exploded.
Pieces of brain, skull and blood fell on the grass. At first I did not understand what happened. I just stared, mouth open and my hands hanging at my side.
Someone was shouting in the background. Johnny's mother burst out the back door and knelt down beside her son's headless body. She took him in her arms and started sobbing and wailing.
I ran all the way home.
Johnny was cremated in a closed coffin. As they lowered him into the grave, his crying mother grabbed me and began shaking me like a rag doll, begging me to tell her what had happened to her son. I had no other information apart from that.
Over the years, I gradually managed to recover from it and almost managed to forget the entire traumatic experience. I never played cowboys and Indians again.
This happened for the second time in the park. I was sitting on a bench, eating lunch, and there was a little girl playing with a water pistol. She came running over to me, pointing her water gun at me and yelling, "Hands up!"
I smiled and raised my arms, pretending to be scared. She hit her water pipe on my face and started laughing. Then, she said, "Now it's your turn!"
Something inside me told me not to do it, but I ignored the uncomfortable feeling, raised my finger and pointed at him.
"Bang! Bang!" I had said.
As soon as these words left my lips, the little girl burst like a water balloon.
Dark red fragments started raining all around me. For the next few minutes I kept thinking only about my friend Johnny and his mutilated body lying in the backyard.
When I came back to consciousness, I saw the girl's mother thrashing around on the grass, screaming and collecting her daughter's severed body parts, frantically waving one hand and one She was holding her feet.
I could just run away.
This happened for the third time this morning itself. I got into an argument with my wife and in the heat of the moment, I told her off by shaking my finger in her face. I didn't even say, "Bang!" Collide!" This is what happened.
I can't bring myself to move forward anymore. I can't even imagine cleaning my wife's remains off the kitchen floor. I can't take the risk that I might cause another death. I can not do this anymore. That's why I've decided to end it all. I just have to put my finger on my head and say the words...
"Bang! Bang!"
At least I'll go out with a bang.
