This is how it happened. Nobody would believe a three-year-old kid. I didn't even know enough to tell anybody. It just happened there he was.
I remember my babysitter a couple weeks earlier saying that the next door neighbor had bought a gun. I didn't think anything. I knew what a gun was. But that was about it.
My mother dropped me off at the sitter's house one morning after she took my dad to the foundry where he worked as a grinder.
I stood ringing the sitter's door bell after my mom left.
No one answered.
Then I noticed a man standing at the door of the next house down the street.
He was holding a pistol. It was pointed at me. He had no expression, to speak of, on his face. Just stood there holding the gun. Looking at me. I looked back at him not having the faintest idea how to react. I wasn't afraid. I was too young.
Later, somehow I realized my first perception of the situation had been wrong. He did, indeed, have an expression. It was subtle, yet powerful. It said, "I have power over you because of this thing I'm pointing at you."
Photo by Xandtor