“Detective, he’s, I don’t understand it, but he’s alive.”
“You don’t understand? It’s what happens when you combine anatomy with idiocy. He put an assault rifle to his chin and pulled the trigger. It definitely made him uglier, but it turns out you don’t need a face to survive. The loss of blood could eventually be a problem, but-
“Shouldn’t we get a, one of the paramedics over here?”
“Yeah, kid; you do that.”
“Hey, look who’s still borderline conscious. That’s right, follow the sound of my voice back into the world of excruciating, faceless pain. You kids today, I swear I don’t fucking get it. I spoke to your mom, caretaker, whoever the woman you were living with was, on my way over here. She told me about the note- no, don’t try to talk yet, you’re missing big chunks of your face, and you’ll only end up spitting blood at me, and I don’t want that- she said you want to be famous, right?”
“Yess.”
“I gave you a yes/no question because I wanted you to shake your head, because, you see, you spit blood on my tie. Christ. Anyway. You killed what, five, six people-”
“Eight-”
“Whatever; that’s like a quarter of a suicide bombing- an inept one. You’re crappier than a nameless, faceless- sorry, couldn’t help myself- uninteresting Middle Eastern Jihadii in Kisufim-”
“What’s Kis-”
“It’s a crappy little town in Israel no one’s ever heard of, which is my point. You’re a teenager and all pissed off because you broke up with your girlfriend, and lost your Taco Bell job-”
“Not Tac-”
“It’s about time you started ‘not talking;’ you’ve already ruined my tie, and my girlfriend would kack me if you coughed blood on this shirt. But we aren’t talking about me, we’re talking about you, which is boring, but seeing as how you’re bleeding to death, I’m humoring you.”
“The, the paramedic says he’s busy helping someone who doesn’t deserve to be bleeding to death from a gunshot wound.”
“Splendid work, kid; don’t take it so harshly, this is rough work on all of us. Get yourself a cup of java; while you’re at it, bring me something black but sweet. Pardon the interruption; we were talking about your big plan to get famous-”
“I am fam-”
“Yeah; of course you are. You’re also an annoying little bastard with a penchant for interrupting me when you’re not even supposed to be talking. If you do it again I’m flicking your ear… See? That is the golden sound of silence uninterrupted by inanity. But you wanted to be famous. Now, I’m not one for regicide, but the President was in town, this morning. That would have made you famous; it would have saddled us with President Vader, but everyone would have remembered you for it. Hell, there would even be people who applauded you. But you didn’t have that kind of drive, vision; Hell, maybe you were just too fucking lazy to find out he was here.”
“Gakh-”
“Uh oh. No, I’m not going to flick your ear; involuntarily choking on your own blood doesn’t really count as an interruption. But let me get in closer, because I’m going to share a secret with you. You’re pathetic, and sad. The reason you failed in this is the same reason you failed in life- you never even tried to be special. We’re not going to remember you, David. We’re going to forget you ever existed.”
“That’s not… not my… my… name…”
