They are the moments that define us. Those single ones who define who you are and who you will continue to be. Are you a hero or are you a coward? We all say we will be heroes. We will rise to the occasion and we dream that when that one terrifying moment occurs, we will be the one to save the day. You. Only you. And you will lead them and they will listen and together you will save the world. You will come out a hero. She won’t.
It is a regular day and she is happy. She won’t be though, not for very long. Because someone will come in here, come to her, to her co-workers, her friends, with guns blazing and several people will die. It will be a tragedy and people will mourn and she will survive. She will live, long and healthy, and she will not, under no circumstances, die here, die today. She will live. And they won’t. But before, before they all die, before her life becomes a blazing hell of noise and blood and pain, before that, before all of it, there will be a moment. It will be short and it will be defining and it will be the moment when the true heroes step forward. Only no will. The moment will exist and it will be clear, it will be so painfully clear to them all, to her, that that moment is happening, that that special moment which comes only once in a lifetime, that the defining moment is there. She will know and they will know and no one, no one will step forward. The moment will wither and die. No one will be willing to sacrifice themselves and no one will be brave and heroic and magnificent. There will only be fear, and then death. They will look at the moment, feel the moment, realise it has come and they will turn their faces away. She will close her eyes and she will hide and she will not do anything to save anyone else. She will save herself and she will hide in fear and there will be gunshots, bam bam bam, only more times, bam bam bam bam bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. The gunshots will signal the end of the moment and it will signal the end of an era, the beginning of death. She will not come out a hero.
They will tell her it is okay. That what she did was natural, normal, survivor’s instinct, gut. No one else tried anything, did they? They will call her feelings “survivors’ guilt” and maybe they will be right, maybe they truly will be, but that will never change what happened. She will not be a hero. So after that moment she will be weakened, she will have a new, brand new and terrible, realization that maybe, just maybe, she isn’t cut out for that hero thingy. But it will be after months and months of pain and guilt because who wants to know that in the moment which allows heroism she backed out, she was too weak and scared and frightened to do anything? Not her. She wants nothing more than her blissful ignorance back. So she will dream again. It was a onetime thing, she will tell herself. If it happened again she would do it all different. It wouldn’t happen that way again. It will become her truth because she, like all of us, wants to be a hero.
It will be a lie.
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