The Ghost in the Machine
Apr. 1st, 2011 07:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI'm amused, now. I wasn't an hour ago.
I live in a part of town where gunfire is part of the occasional background noise. Mostly it doesn't bother me. I tense up, ponder the way the grammar of the shooting is going and decide what to do.
Tonight I was caught off guard by a string of firecrackers. I am not the sort to go to ground the instant I hear a shot/report. This was different. I heard the first one. I recall going... "gunfire", while I was finishing that thought the second one went of, somewhere about the third I was flat on the floor, low-crawling into the kitchen, because that was the direction away from the bullet path through the door (which was closed).
Poor Squidget (still in need of a good home; all his shots and he's fixed. Ignore the demon eyes. We had a priest come look at him, he's fine.) was terrorised, as I went squirming toward him, too damned fast and *way* to spastic for him to think it was safe. He took off in the way only a cat trying to get claws into linoleum for traction (and failing) can manage.
About the time number 12 went off I was 15 feet from my chair, and had parsed out it was firecrackers, not someone emptying a small caliber semi-automatic.
I didn't know I still had it in me. My neck has a slight crick, so does my back. The back of my left thigh is a bit strawberried, from the seat of the chair, and my broken ankle is a bit unhappy (I pretty much used my feet/knees to move my body, a good low-crawl keeps your entire front in contact with the ground). My heart is back to normal, as is my breathing which takes longer).
I live in a part of town where gunfire is part of the occasional background noise. Mostly it doesn't bother me. I tense up, ponder the way the grammar of the shooting is going and decide what to do.
Tonight I was caught off guard by a string of firecrackers. I am not the sort to go to ground the instant I hear a shot/report. This was different. I heard the first one. I recall going... "gunfire", while I was finishing that thought the second one went of, somewhere about the third I was flat on the floor, low-crawling into the kitchen, because that was the direction away from the bullet path through the door (which was closed).
Poor Squidget (still in need of a good home; all his shots and he's fixed. Ignore the demon eyes. We had a priest come look at him, he's fine.) was terrorised, as I went squirming toward him, too damned fast and *way* to spastic for him to think it was safe. He took off in the way only a cat trying to get claws into linoleum for traction (and failing) can manage.
About the time number 12 went off I was 15 feet from my chair, and had parsed out it was firecrackers, not someone emptying a small caliber semi-automatic.
I didn't know I still had it in me. My neck has a slight crick, so does my back. The back of my left thigh is a bit strawberried, from the seat of the chair, and my broken ankle is a bit unhappy (I pretty much used my feet/knees to move my body, a good low-crawl keeps your entire front in contact with the ground). My heart is back to normal, as is my breathing which takes longer).
