I strode hurriedly into the McDonalds
I normally don’t eat junk food
but I had only ten minutes for lunch
The boss was killing me
with his arbitrary demands
and his bullying
I was job-scared
so I put up with everything he dished out
Thinking of that miserable cur
that miserable excuse for a human being
who was my boss
I yanked open the door
and hurried in
looking up at the unfamiliar menu
and didn’t see the puddle of vomit on the floor
My slick-soled dress shoe hit it
and I went into a slide
as if I were on ice
Amazingly I kept my feet
and was halfway across the room before I knew it
almost to where the man stood
holding the big, black automatic weapon
pointing it at the kids having a birthday party
all of which registered in my mind
in a split-second
Time was suspended at that point
and for the moments following
The gunman turned his head toward me
just as I reached him
Sliding on vomit is silent
I never made a conscious decision
but added the strength of my legs
to my momentum
I smashed into him
and knocked him into
the big square garbage container
He hit his head and was knocked cold
His weapon clattered to the floor
The birthday boy’s mother
rushed over and grabbed it
but I kept her from shooting
the madman who’d ruined her son’s third birthday
On TV they called me a hero
and interviewed me on talk shows
Nobody ever mentioned the vomit
No one seems to have noticed it
though some mother must have been aware
that her son or daughter had puked
probably out of fear
I never mentioned the vomit either
I did a good job feigning modesty
when I was called a “hero”
An admirer offered me a better job
and I took it
Author bio:
Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois has had over fourteen-hundred of his poems and fictions appear in literary magazines in the U.S. and abroad. He has been nominated for numerous prizes, and. was awarded the 2017 Booranga Writers’ Centre (Australia) Prize for Fiction. His novel, Two-Headed Dog, based on his work as a clinical psychologist in a state hospital, is available for Kindle and as a print edition. To read more of his work, Google Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois. He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA.
Photo by Amandine Lerbscher on Unsplash