He woke with a slow twisting wrench from a dream about his ex-wife and their children, especially the kids – a 10-year-old boy and a girl 8. In that early moment of consciousness, he knew that he was just as alone and without them when he had gone to sleep the night before. He had had mornings like that for over a year now. The bed, as always, was empty, wifeless. He even missed the feel of little hands on his face and the jump and thump of the children who just couldn’t sleep any more. Then the other thought began to crystallize like a little drop of acid — today was the day. His stomach went liquidly sour. The fact that he had fallen to sleep at all was a small miracle; he hadn’t expected that to happen. He was either going to go to sleep the next night or never again.

It all began with the insult six months before. It was really a stupid thing and it arose from an incident so trivial that any normal adult raised in a modern society in the so-called free world, would have let it go.  For some reason, possibly because he had been caught wrong-footed when he responded too quickly. He felt that his verbal riposte was too feeble, even unmanly, and needed bulking up a little. He lashed out, adding a little sting to the insult. Unfortunately for him, he did it on social media. His opponent took it a little too personally, and the ensuing exchange of insults went viral. Once the Twitterverse knew about it, the options of the two antagonists began to narrow ominously. Either they would have to turn to the old law or the new one. The old law was one populated by tort lawyers and the civil court system, but the new one – formed when the President for Life finally took absolute political power – had legalized dueling with pistols. It was called the Mortal Solutions Amendment, and when 36 states approved it, it became law, touted by the state approved media as “bringing a new level of politeness” to the land. The rules of modern dueling were very strict; first, the severity, or “psychic wounding” of the insult had to meet a very high bar as judged by a panel appointed like a jury. The combat had to take place in a safe location, away from populated areas; it would be witnessed by the same panel that approved it, although it could be recorded and broadcasted everywhere. Identical pistols, each loaded with one bullet by an official were handed out to the combatants. The aggrieved parties stood on spots marked like a home plate in baseball, exactly twenty-five yards apart. A fully-equipped ambulance stocked with an appropriate blood supply and two doctors well trained in trauma recovery techniques were on location. Also a hearse.

Naturally, of course, the events leading up to this denouement had to include a formal challenge and the acceptance of that challenge. The great majority of challenges went unanswered, the recipient, usually if from the coastal states, would ignore it and take the resulting jeers from his enemy as just the price for his safety and long(er) life. The law forbade any following civil recourse; it had to end there, according to the Amendment. Not a few of those challenges were made in relative safety by bullies who knew well that their opponents would never take them up. Sometimes, in places like Massachusetts and California, the challengees were actually praised by their colleagues for waving a red flag at the bull, then spinning adroitly from its horns.

Jack, though, accepted the challenge. He had been drinking a lot. He didn’t know anybody who would praise him for such adroitness. Plenty, though, who would laugh him out of town. He feared distain by others more than he was afraid of death itself. As a matter of fact, he admitted to himself, it might not be too bad a solution.

He made breakfast more out of duty than need, then left most of it untouched. His coffee, even though normally the best thing he tasted in the morning, went cold in the cup before it was half finished. His brain was acting autonomously, as though to protect his sanity. His thoughts were so trivial they even astonished him. “What should I wear?” he asked himself and was surprised at how long it took to decide. He put on clothes, took them off and tried something else, over and over again. He stood in front of the mirror for a long while wearing a set of camouflage hunting coveralls; then took them off, deciding that his opponent wasn’t a deer but a human being who could easily tell the difference between him and a tree. It was cold outside, but he finally decided to go shirtless under his coat for the practical reason that he didn’t want bits of cloth to be carried into his body by a bullet and complicate the recovery process. If it didn’t hit his heart, a major artery, or his brain, that is. He covered his chest and stomach with Purell, then put his parka on.

The duel was scheduled to occur at noon in a field outside of town. That morning a large bulldozer had piled two large heaps of dirt in back of each marker, in order to keep bullets from travelling too far. Jack, accompanied by a friend (to take the car back, just in case) came upon the scene about fifteen minutes early – not because he planned to, but the traffic was unusually light. The officials were all there, including the panel, the doctors and their various vehicles. He saw the hearse before he saw the ambulance. It was parked closest to the killing ground (as Jack had begun to think of it). He was intensely aware of tiny details, his senses at a supernaturally high level, so high that the tiniest things became all the dialogue his mind could contain. There was no breeze, a fact that comforted and bothered him at the same time. Soon to be bare-chested, he would be slightly more comfortable, but the calm air would make the shooting more accurate. It was late in the fall season and the trees were beginning to reflect the end of summer by shedding their own figurative clothing. He and the trees were both going to be naked from the waist up.

Then, from nowhere, came the call. “Gentlemen, choose your weapons”. Everything disappeared from Jack’s mind but those words. The official was standing exactly between the two marks on the dueling ground, holding a deep box. It was covered by a piece of white cloth, its edges overhanging on all sides. Jack saw — for the first time since their online encounter so long ago — his opponent in real life. The man looked strangely impersonal, unrecognizable as the enemy he had exchanged all those insulting words with. Did that person get a substitute? Too late to stop now, Jack knew. As he walked up to the box, he let the parka fall to the ground. Only a small portion of his mind registered the temperature. He was now face to face with his opponent, whose eyes were somehow hard to see. They were looking down. “Don’t remove the cloth, but pick your weapon,” the official said in a flat, Midwestern accent. Jack’s hand brushed his opponent’s hand in the box and for a tiny microsecond he though of locking fingers with it in some kind of weird wrestling match inside the box that no one could see. Soon enough, though, he felt the hard cold of the gun and pulled it out. “The safety is on” said the official, and pointed it out to them both. “pull it back to take it off at my command. Now walk to your places. You to this one,” he said to Jack, pointing to one of them, “and you to the other. When you get there, stand with your back to each other. You will turn and fire at the count of three, but not before…  Now,” he said.

He felt his bladder go as he walked towards his mark and some part of his brain thought that at least until he turned to fire, nobody could see. He felt as if he was breathing in a vacuum. He reached his mark and stood there, gun at his side before he remembered to unlock it, looking at the raw dirt pile with small stones and a tangle of dying vegetation. He could barely hear the official counting down; “One, two thr…” He turned on legs that had somehow become like the roots of a cypress tree, all tangled themselves. His opponent was already facing him, gun rising. Was that a stain on his pants also?

There was only one explosion.

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