reality is broken

as i was sitting in the cafe this morning i started thinking about the possibilities embedded in any situation. even though it did not appear that there was a gun present in a cafe, there could have been one concealed or someone could have walked in carrying a gun. most of the time that is probably unlikely and yet it is possible. and then i thought, what if someone set a loaded gun on a table? it is still probable that it wouldn't be fired and yet it's mere presence does increase the odds of a gun being fired and someone being shot. so in a sense, introducing a loaded gun changes the equation, changes the nature of the game and also the player of that game. and then i started thinking about how much his mother loved guns, talked about guns, nobody knew how many guns she had but she had a bunch of guns and loved them and took her kids to the range to shoot them and how people who lived near the school said that they didn't think anything of hearing shots fired at the school because people are always shooting their guns so shooting guns in the neighborhood is normal. shooting guns outside is normal. shooting guns outside near a school is normal. and then i thought, what if living in that place felt like being stuck with a lousy character in a boring depressing game where good things only seem to happen to other people and you can't score any points and it looks like there is no hope of ever winning that game or even enjoying playing that game and it looked unlikely that leaving would solve anything because you were so dependent on being taken care of by your mother, you had always been taken care of by your mother who was being taken care of by your father who got a divorce and what if you had no idea how you could ever change your character and play a different, more fun game? UNLESS YOU GET A GUN. gun changes the game, gun changes your character, gun rewrites the rules. and all your life, all you have ever seen on every tv show, in every movie, even on the news, local, national, international, gun changes everything. and then i started thinking about how a small community can be a like a net, a web, and how stuck you feel by the weight of everything that was already decided long before you ever arrived and how attached everyone is to the shape of how things have settled. after thinking this i felt kind of excited but then i thought wow that's pretty crazy. but shooting twenty-something kids & teachers, etc. that's pretty crazy too. i remember reading in the paper someone saying that she had no answer for this as if there existed a simple equation A + B = C. but i don't think such an equation exists for this. i think the pattern that gets you to such a place is ridiculously convoluted & harsh & absurd. and yet, there is something very simple that is probably going to be found at the center, and that is hurt, a deep deep hurt, stored in a container that couldn't possibly keep it.