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A brave man dies but once, a coward many times.
-- Hopi

BY THE time the ambulance had got to them they were dead. All of them. I'd left long before but I knew; I could sense something in the air, a feeling; like sorrow, only quieter.
Buzz filled the city that night, it always did, but this time it felt different, stranger, it was alive and anticipating something. Silent screams echoed through the city long before. It knew. This wasn't an impulsive act; those left behind knew that. New York looks down with its omnipotent eye; inspiration dreamt up in a young mind, locked in a dark basement somewhere. A monster; forever growing. Only one true witness amongst the cattle of fearful animals; a perfect witness, without a voice.
Silent screams gain a voice, echoing long into the night. Ricocheting in the ears of the news, like a gloomy underpass they come back louder. Front page the next morning; interviews with witnesses, distraught and scarred by the shocking events. Washington, 1865. But what about the victims scars? Into the bone. Gone forever. I was witness, but a silent one; like the city. No one came to talk to me. I knew what happened. I could sense it.
I saw the same thing everyone did, only it different. When you put two mirrors opposite each other and stand in between you can see the back of your head. Everyone knows the back of their head is their, its just strange to see it. What you see in the mirror is always slightly different to reality. Like memories. Dallas, 1963.

They were regular guys. Everything about them was ordinary. The inside of a skull smashing into a brick wall; that wasn't ordinary, but death is. Life is full of contradictions and oxymorons. Microsoft Works. It's part of life.
They were waiting a few places in front of me in the queue. I wondered, if somehow, things were different, it would have been me. I try to forget. Crowds of people waiting to see the grand screening. I was alone, I had to be. I always was. The reviews were great. Nightmares. 'Hungry Hungry Hippies', it was a comedy. How ironic. Murder. The story of two guys who get the munchies. I still haven't seen it, I didn't want to see it in the first place, just happened to be passing; at least that's what I tell them. New Metro Twin.

It started to rain, people all around me pulled up hoods from coats. They were prepared. I noticed he came back with a hotdog; from a street vendor. I knew because the sausage was limp and the sauerkraut was lumped in the middle. Washington, 1981. When you get them from Junior's everything is perfectly symmetrical. Mustard. Tomato. Sauerkraut. It's an art form so I'm told.

Back of the queue, somewhere around West 100th, I knew it well. Been living in an apartment nearby for a few years. Four. Only a small place, but I don't need it now, I had to leave. Get away. The queue didn't move for hours. We were camped outside; usually the crowds didn't go far beyond the façade but tonight it was going to be packed; maybe not everyone was going to get in. No one did get in. Ohio, 1970. They certainly didn't. At least they hadn't bought their popcorn yet.

The rain continued to fall, I watched myself beginning to soak. People ducked for cover, they were running from gunfire. Some people left, they'd had enough. I watched as my sweatshirt turned one shade darker and my jeans began to stiffen. I was the only one who wasn't wearing a coat except from them. Mustard on hotdog starts to dilute with every smash of a raindrop. Water crashing onto heads, cascading down faces. The asphalt was a broken mirror, reflections distorted. Yellow lights, illuminating from below. Every raindrop was a bullet, ever damaging the surface the mirror, distorting the reflection. Shards recoil.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He tried to eat faster, cramming huge amounts into his face. Protecting it for dear life. He wasn't fast enough. The pitter-patter of rain hitting the rubbery surface of the sausage. Smashing against it bouncing away. Dead.

By the time the ambulance got there they were dead. Before they hit the floor. The first two went down easy. Simple job, shot through the chest. Simple. Blood on the street. Blood on the rocks. The last; penetrating the throat. He was already dead before the bullet left the gun. Piercing the skin at the throat, it ripped open a whole new orifice. At first, it was just blood that seeped from the open wound. Crawling down his chest, onto his shirt. As he collapsed onto the floor, some of the hotdog found its way out. Like a basketball it seemed to bounce around the rim before finally falling through. Three points. It was like something out of a movie, I didn't see it; I sensed it.
Silent screams had something to shout about. It was a massacre. No one still quite sure what happened. The perpetrator a face drowning in a sea of panic.

Dead.