COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023: "Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.  NON-OCCURENCE AT THE MULTIPLEX Last week my hubby Tom and I went to our local multiplex for an afternoon showing of M3gan,  ...the oh, so fun horror (but not horrific) flic about an A.I.-infused doll who's 'way too smart - and smart alecky - for everyone's own good. Much as I ended up enjoying the movie, before it started I had a somewhat unnerving - and thought-provoking - encounter. Probably because it was the middle of a Friday afternoon, the movie house was pretty empty and Tom and I were the first to arrive in the theater where "M3gan" was showing. After we settled into our seats in the back row I decided to hit the restroom before the movie started. As I was walking down the hallway towards the restrooms, I crossed paths with a man walking in the opposite direction, towards the theaters. He was a young white guy, looked to be in his twenties, tall and lanky, slightly scruffy hair, slightly scruffy beard, wearing a slightly scruffy baseball cap, slightly scruffy jacket, jeans and hiking boots. As we passed I smiled and said "Hi" and he smiled and said "Hi" back, this being the Ohio way when two people pass each other in a public place. But as soon as we passed I was hit with the thought: Young, slightly scruffy-looking white guy walking by himself down the hall in a movie theater... My mind started ticking away: He wasn't wearing a backpack, but what if there was an AR 15 tucked into the waistband of his jeans? What if he was headed to our theater? What if he got Tom before I got back? What if after I got back he stormed into our theater brandishing his AR15? There was only Tom and me in the back row...the rule is hide, run, fight, but there'd be nowhere to hide or run...I envisioned Tom and me dropping down behind our seats, then me quickly crawling to the end of the row, where I'd suddenly spring out into aisle, hopefully take the shooter by surprise and ram into him, knocking him backwards and causing him to tumble down the steps and drop his gun. I'd then grab his gun and hit him with it. When I arrived back at the theater the shooter wasn't there, only Tom and a group of four young people seated a few rows in front of us. I breathlessly told Tom about the scruffy young white guy in the hallway and my plan for in case he turned out to be a shooter and came to our theater. Tom sighed and said that they guy probably wasn't a shooter, but just an ordinary young white guy dressed like young white guys dress, taking a bathroom break like me and heading to the theater to rejoin his friends and watch "Avatar." Turned out that Tom was right about the guy not being a shooter. He probably was just an ordinary young white guy heading back to the theater to watch "Avatar" with his friends. But here's the point: What kind of a country do we live in when a 71-year-old lady can't go to the movies without worrying about shooters? And scruffy young white guys can't go to the movies without worrying about old ladies worrying about them being shooters? We know what kind of a country we live in. And yet I keep going to the movies. And dreaming on. 
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 Three nights ago while I was sitting at the kitchen table my husband Tom called to me from the family room where he sat at his computer. "Another shooting," he said. "At a mushroom farm near San Francisco. Eight shot, seven dead." My immediate response was...nothing. Not anger. Not outrage. Not grief. It was strange. It was as if I'd been struck by mental and emotional paralysis. I couldn't even dredge up anything to say about this horrific news. I felt out of words. After a few moments I managed to say, rather half-heartedly, "That's terrible." How can I explain it? It was if it it were too much effort to feel anything. It was if there were a rock on my heart that I didn't have the strength to lift. Less than 48 hours earlier eleven people had been gunned to death at a dance hall in Monterey Park, a community a few miles east of downtown Los Angeles. They were older people, mostly Asian, people in their 50's, 60's and 70's, murdered by a 72-year-old madman with an assault rifle. They were people's parents and grandparents and they liked to go out dancing. And now they're gone.  As are the seven people who used to work at the mushroom farm.  As are all the men, women and children in this country who've been indiscriminately slaughtered by men brandishing assault weapons. And as will be all the men, women, and children who will continue to be indiscriminately slaughtered by men brandishing assault weapons. It occurred to me that the rock I was feeling was hopelessness. Hopelessness that there was anything I could do or say or feel that would make any difference in the epidemic in this country of random mass shootings by men with assault weapons. I've written letters to my representatives. I've written letters to my local newspaper. I've gone to protests calling for a ban on assault weapons.          I've taken part in sit-ins in congressmen's offices    I've written dozens of blog posts calling for better gun control.        I even wrote a protest song.  But what does anything I do matter? What does anything any American citizen says or does matter when our lawmakers, the only ones who have the power to end the violence by passing sensible gun laws, won't do anything because they're in the pockets of the gun lobby?  Congressional and Senate Republicans kill every bill calling for the ban of assault weapons,  ...and they've stopped even pretending that they care about the lives that are taken away by gun violence. After the last two shootings within this past week they haven't even bothered to offer their phony old pious "thoughts and prayers" pablum. I suppose they believe they don't need to bother anymore. They must know how hopelessly worn-down people like me with rocks on their hearts are.
And yet the other day as I was driving home from the supermarket listening to the news on the radio I heard that President Biden has again called for an assault weapons ban. "Oh, thank you," I said to the radio. And the rock lifted a millimeter. COMING OUT IN APRIL, 2023: "Tropical Depression," the final episode of the "Equal and Opposite Reactions Trilogy," will be released on APRIL 27, 2023 by Black Rose Writing.  |
"Equal And Opposite Reactions"
by Patti Liszkay Buy it on Amazon: http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa or from The Book Loft of German Village, Columbus, Ohio 
Or check it out at the Columbus Metropolitan Library
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November 2023
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