LAKE WANNAVISTA

It was late October, and the three men stood at the far end of a desolate moonlit dock.
A cheeky breeze danced across the lake slapping at the rigging of the 30 ft. catamaran moored behind them.

Lennie the lout was staring across the water.
It wasn’t romantic.

He, the writer, a thin man, sporting a pointy goatee, cool slick black hair and wearing a black and white tuxedo, smiled.
He was Ricardo, the most sophisticated of the three, and probably the most sophisticated person in the world. The other two — not so much — dressed in ripped jean jackets, scruffy blue jeans and red bandanas; these were two sidekicks in the great game of life which Ricardo had invented.
Behind them, tall evergreens swooned and swayed like aliens on a smoochy first date.
Something to think about.

“There’s no point writing about someone if you can’t kill them,” Ricardo explained.
Of the three, it was the ginger-haired Lennie, who decided writing was something smart people did, and wisely kept his mouth shut.

“Well, I’m more of a non-fiction man myself,” the third man offered nervously.
His name was Mordecai.

“How about you, Lennie?”
Lennie tossed a pile of ropes into the cockpit of the catamaran and without hesitation leapt from the wooden dock to the boat’s deck. He landed with a light thud which surprised Ricardo.
“She really whistles when the wind’s up.” Lennie said as he stared across the lake.
In his writer’s mind Ricardo was ecstatic; he had cast this lug of a man to carry out the big jobs, like thuggery, so this display of agility was a pleasant surprise. A Pulitzer prize winning surprise.

Ricardo watched as Mordecai, the brains of the 2-man-thuggery operation, followed suit. When both men had found their bearings on the fibreglass deck, they looked back; only to see Ricardo averting his eyes, a sign that the outcome was hopeless.

Mordecai pleaded.
“After all we’ve been through. You’re setting us adrift?”

The words had little effect on Ricardo, standing safe and sturdy on the imaginary dock. His imaginary dock. In fact, his imaginary lake.

The thugs cried in unison.
“You could have waited ’til summer — it’s fucking freezing.”

“You’ll have each other,” Ricardo replied coolly. “Besides, it’s the end of the road — time for you to sail off into a fabulous — -”
“But there ain’t no sunset!” Lennie pouted. “You should ave, could ave given us a sunset, a real nice one with rainbows even!”
“Yes. “ Ricardo smiled. “But I’ve given you this boat.”
Mordecai focused his eyes on the rising mist. Turning to Ricardo in a desperate grovel, he pleaded for sanity.
”But Ricardo, it’s only chapter 3. You can’t kill us in chapter 3!”

The light of the moon, Ricardo’s moon, framed the two men in a setting so emotionally rich that an Oscar-winning composer could only dream of composing a score equal to the emotional impact of Ricardo’s writing.

In his fine top hat and his shiny black shoes, the great artist walked to the yellow fibreglass boat and gave the hull a kick, a tap, — ala Fred Astaire, and the catamaran slowly drifted into the murk taking the two hapless thugs into a world of darkness.
And, like everything else in Ricardo’s stories, they were soon swallowed whole by the grey mists of Lake Wannavista.

*The Hollywood sign, freshly-painted and rainbow-coloured, towered over the snake-filled landscape.
On the base trail that spun itself like a golden tiara round the Los Angeles foothills, 2 figures, a man and a woman wearing expensive cotton fleeces and designer hiking boots, made their way along a narrow walking trail. Bob, a man of 40, bookish but still stylish in a long ponytail, strolled with an African American woman named Susan who had a thing for adventure and purple glasses.

After kicking up some dust, Susan stopped.
She turned to her companion and gently picked a few flecks of lint from his shoulders.
“There. Now you don’t look like such a hippie.”
“I guess not — you want me to cut this right?”
He flipped up his long brown mane.
“Up to you — it’s a free country”
“Maybe I’ll surprise you.”
“Ha, that’s what I like about you, Bob.”

Walking farther along, the path edged into a steeper slope. The afternoon sun cast its shadows in the shape of a slashing W that threatened to cage the two lovers inside its zig-zags.

“It’s much, much, better now,” she said.

“ I guess so — probably put millions into it. I mean, just painting it would have cost a small fortune.”
Bob glanced upwards and squinted through his expensive Lennon granny-glasses. “It’s probably double the size. Tons of concrete.”
Susan sighed. “Funny to think of all the people in our high school — he would be the billionaire.”
Bob shook his head. The idea of his high-school rival Ricardo being mentioned on this day of days was almost unbearable.
“ …and I thought he was going to be a teacher.”
She laughed. “Ricardo?”
“ I guess you knew him better than I did.”
Susan punted a small stone down the trail.
Why did they choose the Hollywood hills? She thought. Stupid. Stupid.

Focussing on the matter at hand, Bob kept his stride even.
Shaking off his own dark thoughts, he reached inside his chest pocket and felt his velvet box of happiness. His mood lightened.

“Great day for a hike isn’t it.”
“Its sure is,” she agreed as she patted her tummy-fat reminding him of their new year’s resolution.
“A deal’s a deal, right?” He said.
Bob’s words sounded hollow, at least to him. The thought of how much the ring had set him back, and the unfairness of it all -literally, seriously — standing in her ex-boyfriend’s Hollywood shadow made his stomach tighten.

Why did she mention Ricardo?
In a sudden burst of energy Susan picked up her pace.
“I want to get to the top, slowpoke, let’s go!”

With a hearty jaunt, they hit the trail hard. Soon Bob and Susan found their pace. When they reached devil’s corner, the path narrowed forcing them to break their stride, and it was then Bob decided proposing under a canopy of cedar trees would be perfect. He caught up to Susan as she bent over her knees, out of breath. “I’ve got something for you.”

He should have given her a second to catch her breath, but in his mind Bob wanted to take her breath away, make her speechless, and prove that, at least on this occasion, he could be the spontaneous one.

So, with Susan’s face caked with salty sweat, he reached into his pocket. The black crow squawking overhead didn’t phase Bob one bit. On bended knee he raised his eyes to meet Susan’s deep hopeful gaze. He had been planning this moment ever since they’d met; years ago, at the newly-opened Ricardo’s restaurant in Burbank.
“Behind you Bob.”

At first, a little put off to be directed in his big moment, Bob’s lips drew tight. Susan’s perky little smile had completely vanished. Had he done something wrong?
The man-to-be spun in a half circle only to come inches away from an unwelcome intruder. A rattlesnake with dusty grey streaks tongued him with bulging eyes.
Frantically, Bob skidded his body backwards along the sandy floor to Susan who helped him up.
“It’s not rattling,” she said. “Come on!”

Out of the grove they raced for their lives like a couple of banshees, howling and doubling over with teary-eyed laughter until utterly overcome with exhaustion, they stumbled, tumbled, and rolled to a stop on a grassy knoll.
A narrow escape.
“Of all the luck.” Bob pouted.
“Of all the places to ask a girl.” Susan laughed hilariously, laying her head on the soft grass.
Above them, the sun beamed through the letters of the gigantic Hollywood sign, and with the thought that this may, indeed, finally, be the perfect moment, Bob brushed his pony tail behind his ear as if to signify a new beginning.
Holding the black velvet box with shaking hands, in the most endearing, yet un-original, and yet, the most meaningful way he could think of…
Susan’s perky smile returned.
He relaxed.
With a sense of sexy daring she gazed back at him, smiling deliciously.
“Open it, Lover-boy.”

And so he did.
And as he opened the box, those long W-shaped shadows cast by the Hollywood sign extended over the young couple, and just as surely, over the entire length of the United States of America creeping over the craggy Western Rockies and alongside the morning wheat fields and the highways and the byways until those same shadows sank into the lapping frigid waters of Lake Wannavista, 2000 miles away.

“Whose boat is this?”
Lennie whispered into the cold night air.
He whispered again.
“Mordecai?”
“Yes”
“ Did you say Ricardo bought it in Los Angeles?”
“Yes that’s right.
“Mordecai?”
“What IS it? Lennie.”
“Why does Ricardo want us dead? — Is it because of high school?” “Ya. Probably. Some people just can’t let go.”
The skiff drifted slowly through the mist that blanketed the painted swirls of the lake.
Lennie scratched his head.
“Which ways we goin?”
“I think West.”
This idea seemed to set Lennie off. Lennie getting spooked was no surprise, but the manner in which he swiveled his head left and right, and then on a different axis, looking north, and then getting progressively more worried as he glanced back to the south, gave Mordecai the creeps.
“What is it?”
“I swear it’s nothing, dude, but I can’t tell the difference from where we was going and where we was coming….seems out of whack.” Mordecai cast his eyes at a patch of dark smothering the shore. Above the rocky outline, he saw a tangled grove of trees that sheltered a small half moon bay.

“Not sure what you mean Lennie.”
“Turn around.”
“What?”
“Turn the boat around.”
Thoroughly taken aback by Lennie’s demanding behaviour, Mordecai begrudgingly obeyed, and within minutes had brought the boat around in a half circle; pointing the boat eastwards.

“That bunch of trees, dude.”
“Yes.”
“Looks the same as the first bunch, right?”
“So?”
“Looky there, dude. Looky at the third bunch over there.”
Mordecai turned his head to the south, and in a sickening flash of realization he knew what Lennie was on about.
He peered back to the east, glanced to the north, spun around to the west, then draped his hands over his face in dismay.
“Argh!”
His eyes had given him the same result in every direction. So identical were the four shores of the lake that he really didn’t have to turn his head at all.
“Damn that Ricardo — playing god again!”
Lennie hopped into the cockpit.
“I’m not crazy, right?”

Mordecai shook his head and scowled in frustration knowing the four shores of Lake Wannavista were just mirror images of each other.
“I think he’s asking for help.”

“Who?”

Not more than 2o meters away the water’s surface started to bubble with a murky ooze.
“This is Ricardo’s dirty work.”
“You can say that again, dude! This stuff is yucky.” Lennie reached his hand over the hull and scooped the mucky stoney substance into a heap onto the deck.
“It’s pretty solid, dude.”
For the first time in their lifelong friendship Lennie had actually come up with an idea on his own.

“Remember when we used to go ice fishing ?”
Mordecai remembered.
“I bet we could walk on top of this stuff — ‘sides you never learned to swim.”
Mordecai grimaced.
Having a lifelong friend who knew everything about you wasn’t necessarily a good thing. And to make matters worse, these same lifelong friends, in this case Lennie, was becoming less of a follower and more of a leader which upsets the natural order. Naturally, this grated on Mordecai’s nerves.
Suddenly Lennie pointed like a doberman.
“Look there’s a light! Just like the one in The Great Gatsby!” Mordecai turned his head and was astonished to see a flickering red light near the western beach.
After a long moment, he let out a sigh of relief: the flashing light wasn’t mirrored by 3 other red lights on the remaining 3 coasts. The breeze picked up. Above the shore, the swaying evergreens had torn off their leafy limb-accessories like frenetic Beyonce dancers at a Super Bowl half-time show.

Mordecai, a long-time Beyonce fan, knew the square red light blaring the letters E.X.I.T. was a lucky break.
But Mordecai’s vision often blurred in the wind causing him to read the sign the way a delinquent high school kid would read it after a long stay in detention class… E.X.I.S.T.

He needed a moment to think.

By now Lennie was running on a long wake of ooze halfway to the shore.
“What’s takin you?” He yelled. “…the boat’s gonna sink!”
Mordecai knew it didn’t make any sense at all. This was all Ricardo’s doing.
He leapt from the boat. It was a terrible mistake. He missed the patch of ooze. He dropped like a concrete slab into an icy slip of Lake Wannavista.
His bones froze.
Time stood still.
When he surfaced, his lips and ears and nostril hairs had turned to frozen pink plastic.
Lennie had gotten back in a nick of time. He dragged his frozen friend onto a floating patch of ooze.
As Mordecai wiped the freezing imaginary water, Ricardo’s imaginary water, from his eyes, it was an irritatingly confident Lennie who spotted it first.
“Well looky that!”
Mordecai was afraid to look.
“Gawd Morde — I think I’m gonna cry!”
The naked trees swayed again and Lennie bawled like a baby. Mordecai wanted to punch a certain somebody after the hell he’d been through, but as his body warmed up he realized Lennie’s tears were tears of joy.
He turned his head towards the flashing exit sign and saw a gigantic concrete structure.

It sported an enormous stone gate and stood proudly, patriotically, beckoningly, on a pebble beach.
Next to the flashing red exit light, above the gate, a sign read: Lake Wannavista Senior Secondary School. Home of the Lake Wannavista Tigers.

*************
Tiger spoke.
“Whenever there’s grass; there’s a tiger, or at least there should have been one.”
Ricardo looked up, “I couldn’t agree more.”
The tiger stole across the empty staffroom with his magnificent paws sinking deeply into the carpet. He sniffed a few chalk brushes, leapt upon an empty desk, and gave Ricardo a wary stare.
It was just after detention hour. The room was empty.
Ricardo, as LWSS schools’ detention monitor, usually spent his late afternoons monitoring his imagination for stories.
The tiger was in his prime, fierce, and utterly powerful. He yawned the way tigers always yawn, much like a lion; but way more threatening, at least to Ricardo’s eyes.
“So it’s ok?” said Ricardo in a voice smaller than a breadbox.
“I gave you free will, didn’t I?”
Ricardo placed his pencil down on the counter and rested his hands on his thick binder.
“How can I finish?”

“You must kill them all.”

“ I tried, but they’re too…” Ricardo for all his vocabulary couldn’t find the words.
“There is a solution.”
“Yes, tell me.”
“Forget about evaluation. Go backwards; through syntheses, analysis, past application, through comprehension, until you reach knowledge.” Ricardo scratched his head.
“Uh, ok, then what?”
“Then, imagine…”

Susan kissed the ring on her finger. The lovers embraced. She whispered in his ear.
“Come on, let’s check out the sign!”
“Whaa?”

Susan was already 20 paces ahead.
In a sudden flash, Bob Thatshisname, a man who lived and died for the status quo, realized he was now engaged to a rollercoaster.

“You know what my answer is, silly!” she laughed.
And as he watched her run, the newly emboldened heart in Bob’s torso thumped like a king gorilla’s heart after a loud jungle mating session.

Like all men and gorillas truly in love, Bob realized Susan’s independence was no longer a threat.
“Last one buys dinner!” he yelled.
Almost as if a touch of angel’s wind had caught him in its current; with the Wings of Mercury he raced past a flabbergasted Susan, tying her shoelaces.

When they reached the sign, panting and in good humour, the sign was 3 times the size they expected.
“Why did he have to paint it rainbow colors?” Bob huffed.
Susan replied, “I think he’s compensating for all the kids he bullied in high school.”

“That wasn’t Ricardo — That was Lennie.”
“Ya but didn’t Ricardo and Mordecai put him up to it?”
“Good point.”
Their emotions: like the panting and the love-lust, and even God’s emotions like the heat from the afternoon sun, had dropped in temperature.
“…So… Is there anything you want to tell me?”
Susan found herself staring through one of the great O letters.

“Um. Not much to say really. I think, I, I slowed him down, so after a couple of months I went to Georgetown, and that was that.”
“Oh. I thought it was more.”
“About Ricardo? No. Nothing sexual.”
“Sure?”
Susan walked over and tenderly tweaked Bob’s ponytail.
“You don’t have to cut this.”
Bob smiled. The day was turning out perfect after all.
Susan was leaning against the base of the Y Letter, playing with her ring, utterly content. She was so happy she could cry.
And, as with most long-term couples Susan’s happiness meant Bob’s spidey senses were on high alert.
This was too perfect.

“Hello? Hello?”

The voice bended around from behind the large Hollywood letters.

Turning his head towards the grassy slopes, Bob saw nothing but the vast panoramic view of Los Angeles.
Susan braced against one of the gigantic Os and instinctively palmed her free hand over her ring.

Jumping down from a rainbow-coloured W-ledge, a tall man dressed in fine clothes and a top hat landed on the grass before them.
He stood up and bowed with a sense of the debonair.
Susan let out a gasp.

Bob fainted.

Susan gasped again.

Bob lifted his head.

Then fainted again.

The man smiled.
Susan could feel her knees quake.

“Ricardo?”

“Mr. Richards? Remember me?”
A young man of about twenty stood under the red exist sign at the front door of the staff room.
Tiger growled.
Ricardo dropped his pen. Startled by the use of his real name, he stammered for a moment before putting a name on the unexpected interrupter of his craft.
“Class of… of 21? Of course! Billy Connelly — why, how are you?”
The ex-student, visibly relieved to be greeted so warmly by his old teacher, reached out to shake hands.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Not at all — you know me, just writing my Nobel peace prize. Ha ha. Now, what’s happened to your hair?”

Billy laughed. “Ha ha. Mr. R. I signed up…leave for Afghanistan next week — just wanted to say thanks.”
Richard’s green eyes peered at the boy’s glassy blue eyes.
“Well, I saw your S.A.T.scores — well done!”

“Thanks, couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Now now … so what about the University of Lake Wannavista?”

“I’ll serve my country first… by the way is Mr. Hinds in the music room?”
Richards nodded.
“Anyways, I just wanted to say thanks… and… well…”
Before the handsome young student and withered teacher could commit to a final good-bye, barreling down the corridor, came a loud, deathly sound shimmering with immediacy and finality.
BANG!
Instinctively they looked towards the glass windows revealing the long empty corridors of Lake Wannavista High.
Richards swore for the first time in twenty years.
“What the f?”

BANG… BANG.
Both men instantly hit the floor.
BANG!
As they lay there, Billy knew exactly what he was hearing. Richards not so much.

BANG BANG BANG!
By now Billy’s military training kicked in, and teacher Richards, although often absent from school-shooter drills, had enough sense to do the obvious.

Richards ran to the nearest closet followed by Billy who ran backwards keeping a sharp eye on the entrance for any intruders.
In his confused panic Richard could have sworn he heard Tiger growling and for the first time ever, Richards felt that genuine-rip- your-heart-out-blame-the-NRA helplessness mixed with fear. Moments passed like a slow murky tide and they sat staring at each other in the confines of the janitor’s maintenance closet.
Billy opened the closet door a peep.
A dark hooded shadow strolled past the front of the glass windows. “We’re fucked.” Billy said. “He’s got an AR-15.”
Suddenly the young man decided to act.
In a flash, Billy, the soon-to-be-soldier-who-would-someday-become- President, raced across the checkered carpet. When Richards finally summoned the will to look through the crack in the door, Billy was gone.
All he could hear were Billy’s footsteps echoing down the corridor. “Oh my…” Richards whispered over and over as he hugged his knees to his chest trying to ignore the fearsome imaginary ooze that suffocated any chance of imaginary courage from his overly imaginative brain.

BANG…
or was it…BAM?

“Civilization!”
They were standing under a red exist sign that hovered over the centre of a modern suburban cul de sac.
In the distance, the double-hull of the yellow catamaran was pointing skywards in a final salute to all land and air beings; including the scantily-clad Beyonce tree-dancers, until it sank to the bottom of Lake Wannavista.
Mordecai wiped the guck from his watch and wondered why time had suddenly meant nothing.

“God damn Ricardo,” he muttered. “Lennie, any idea of where we are?”
“You mean, we’re not in chapter 3 anymore?”
“Look at those houses — seem familiar?”

Still emotional after seeing his alma mater lit up on the pebble beach, for Lennie, seeing his family home was too much.
More tears poured down the gentle giant’s cheeks.
“It’s just like it was, Mord, and look — there’s Ricardo’s house!” Both men were immediately awestruck at the ten-roomed pastel monster that towered at the end of Ricardo Boulevard.

“Damn that Ricardo.” Mordecai muttered again, “Always playing with the truth — don’t you remember? Lennie, Ricardo’s family was dirt poor.”
“That’s right, Morde, so, so, can I ask a stupid question?”

Mordecai rolled his eyes.
“Sure Lennie. Whatever you want.”
Lennie eyed Mordecai as if he could trust him. “Have we crossed over?”

Bob stood up and greeted Ricardo with the enthusiasm of a Christian being led to the lions.
“Long time Ricardo — like what you did to the sign.”
Susan brushed her hair from her eyes.

“Ricardo, I, I can’t believe it’s you.”

Ricardo curtsied which made Susan chuckle.
“Still as debonair as ever.”
“Great day for a hike.” Bob said, “Ricardo — hike much?”

Ricardo smiled, he understood Bob’s resentment. And of course, he understood Bob was broke and he even knew the jeweler who had sold Bob his expensive wedding ring: Ricardo’s on 4th street, of course.
“Actually I had those trails cleared for that very reason.” He said.

An awkward silence gripped the three Lake Wannavista alumni, and whether it was ignited by a sudden snarl from the Tiger only Ricardo could hear, or just a sense of loyalty that only high school friends could understand, suddenly they found themselves in a group hug.

Susan wanted to tell Ricardo she was sorry for the way she dumped him, and Bob wanted to tell Ricardo he always believed in him, and Ricardo, well actually Richard, just wanted to say he was sorry for everything.

Instead Ricardo said, “I want nothing but the best for you guys.”

The moment regained its composure and it was Bob who brought it up.
“So …Ricardo, whatever happened to Lennie and Mordecai?”

Teacher Rick Richards sat motionless in the closet.

BANG!

His thoughts, creations, and emotions rolled into a snowball so enormous it threatened to race past the boundaries of his cerebral cortex.
Only Tiger could save him. And his imagination. This time he looked through a different lens — Tiger’s eyes. And, as though fate was playing a mean game of chess — through the glass windows another feline monster appeared:

a black panther.

The shooter followed. He was dressed in green and brown khakis and carried, just as Billy said, an AR-15.

Richard sat back in the closet. Incredibly Susan appeared. She took off her hiking boots and tiptoed daintily across the spongy carpet.

She opened the closet door and then she glared down at him.

“What the hell happened to you?” she demanded. “You were the angry one — remember? Ambitious too!”

“I just couldn’t do it. “Richards answered.
“DO WHAT?”
“Pull the trigger.”
The menacing snarling sounds of the black panther filled the staff room.

From a corner Tiger snarled back.

In the back of the room, under the exist sign, the hooded shooter reloaded his gun.
“I mean pull the trigger of life.” Richards tried to explain. “That’s why I write.”

Lennie and Mordecai were racing down the hall towards the staff room.
“Ricardo!” They yelled in unison.

Perhaps the only woman Richards had ever loved, Susan, and now Tiger were both glaring down at Richard hunched over in his sanctuary.
“Kids are dying!”

They roared. “You need to fucking do something!”

For all concerned, the snowball came crashing down.

In another class room Billy was clearing out the bloodied kids. He breathed a sigh of relief. No fatalities.

BANG!

Strange, thought Richard.
It seemed strange to even an expert in imaginary scenarios like Richard that this shooter had an obsession with single rounds. Ricardo stood up and Tiger followed.

And Time did its weird thing again.
This time it seemed as if everything was perfectly normal. Just a typical Lake Wannavista day.
He walked back to his place at the counter and pulled his favourite pencil from his pocket.
The black panther spied its prey, and equally, seemed confused by this lack of fear, which made him whimper like a kitty-cat in heat.

The shooter walked closer.
Richard picked up his story where he had left off. The deathly quiet of the staff room was only broken by the scribbling of his pencil. But, like ominous rolling thunder clouds, his memories gathered. Lennie and Mordecai burst into the room, ready for action. Bob and Susan stood fearlessly by a water cooler, but ultimately Richard’s high school memories were utterly helpless. They could only watch the shadowy figure pointing his AR 15 at the unsuspecting Richard, pen-name Ricardo.
So as Richard wrote, the shooter, as confused as the panther, twisted in sweaty perplexity.
This lack of fear was an attack on evil itself; and evil for all its loathsomeness, was nothing to a writer as sophisticated as Ricardo. Widening his dark psychotic eyes, the soon-to be-raped-by-convicts- shooter raised his gun.

And Time contracted.
Then, surprising Tiger and his longtime friends, Richards made a move. Not for a gun, but pathetically for a glass of water.
Lemon water.
Inside his glass was an upside-down slice of yellow lemon. It brought back memories. Ricardo loved that yellow catamaran.

So, as the longtime-English-teacher-from-Lake-Wannavista-Senior- Secondary High School took his final sip, the shooter edged even closer.
Manhood-toy raised, his black soul-panther’s hair bristling with anticipation, his puny little fingers wrapped around the trigger, the soon-to be-many-times-gang-raped-by-convicts-shooter fired his final shot.
And, of course, Time stood still.
And he was stopped.

Not that was he stopped by Lennie’s brutal strength, nor by Mordecai’s lethal wits, nor by Tiger’s powerful claws, nor by Susan and Bob’s love.

In fact, He, the writer, for sure would say, as endings go;

that’s as un-satisfying as a Beyonce concert without sexy props.

Thankfully, there was one thing teacher Richards knew.
As every teacher knows.

Only the pen could somehow make evil blink.

And during that blink, with the force of God’s temperature rising from an uncontrollable anger at the NRA, the beloved-school- teacher used a careers-worth-of-pent-up classroom-management- rage and unresolved high-school memories to mash the shooter’s face with the sharp shards of righteous glass with the smash from a simple cup.
Yes. Lemon water.
Again — no one died.

And, a few hours later, after the police reports were finalized, Lake Wannavista teacher Rick Richards and former student Billy Connelly were hailed as heroes.

*****
A week later the sun set over Lake Wannavista. There are no grey mists on Lake Wannavista. And no reports of ooze, ever. Anyways, late one afternoon Richard sailed his brand new catamaran named Susan into a fabulous golden sunset. His old buddies Lennie and Mordecai came along for the ride. Billy Connelly came along too.