Gun

        I didn’t like my first time. Sure, I felt a lot of pride from what I had accomplished – which was a necessary objective – but I still didn’t like it. I had just been born. My kind aren’t conscious until we carry out our objective for the first time. However, I do somehow instinctively know that the others and I went through intensive training and testing before we were conscious. 

 You see, we only become sentient, only become able to understand the implications of our function, after we get an owner. And my first owner caused me to carry out my function efficiently and righteously – though I do wish that my function wasn’t even necessary in this world.

 “It wasn’t my fault,” I told myself after the smoke had cleared. “I wouldn’t even exist if not for the creators.”

 To this day, I know that my thinking in regards to this matter has always been correct. But it will never take away the guilt I have over what I was made for.

 As I think back to when I was first used, I realize that the memory is a blurry one. All I can really recall is a man in black bursting through my owner’s front door and rushing towards his daughter. Then, only blackness…until my next use. Time doesn’t really pass much between our uses, especially not from our perspective.

 All of a sudden, I had a new owner, and I hated him. I hated him with every polymer of my lead. My previous owner had used me almost half-ashamedly to protect his family. But this new man – he was the type of person who families would actually need protection from. The same type who almost took my first owner’s daughter. The only type my kind should ever be used against.

 We aren’t exactly conscious between our uses, but we are somehow still aware of what happens with our owners during that time. I can’t really explain it, and some of the events are still clouded to me; but I’m aware of most of the events that transpired with both my previous owner and my current one. What I don’t know, however, is how I came to be possessed by this new man.

 I could have been stolen, sold, found – it doesn’t really matter anyway. The bad ones always find ways of acquiring us, and a lot of the good ones are just too timid to even consider owning us and putting us to our proper use. 

 I also know that they always debate about our control and distribution, but I can’t help but put my tongue in my barrel about all of that. They can never control us. Instead of using us more wisely, they want to eliminate us. But they never can; they are merely kidding themselves.

 The Crystal Demon was once legal, and they eventually eliminated it under law. But anyone can still acquire it. The Drink of Inebriation – which can be blamed for our misuse more than almost anything else – was also once abolished, back in the days of our adolescence. But the people never stopped finding ways to get it – so it became legal once again. I wonder if the same thing could happen with the Crystal Demon.

 Speaking of the Crystal – my new owner consumes it frequently, along with the Nectar of Inebriation. That’s about all he does besides pull my trigger and end lives. Why couldn’t I have been owned by law enforcement, or by a conscientious citizen? Why is fate so cruel?

 Now I fear I am becoming evil, mirroring the heart of my owner. I’m being blamed! They won’t stop blaming me! Can it really be true? All my fault? Why can’t more good people own my kind? I shouldn’t have been made, but it’s too late. Centuries too late. I wish a good man owned me! I feel…I’m becoming…becoming…
SILENCE
METAL
BANG.

This little story of mine has been published by the creative writing group “Creative Quills” into a collection of short narratives titled, Alternate Perspectives

Please check it out and buy a copy! There are many great stories in it from some good friends of mine, all written from the perspective of something not human.