How I Will

Hmmm... I guess I'm in a mood tonight

I always counted myself lucky that, while others worried and struggled, labored in fear of death, I knew exactly how it would end for me.
I joined in the speculation anyway, of course. At times joking that I wanted to die "of old age, in bed, with someone else's wife," and other times entirely serious when I said that my perfect death would be fighting as part of a desperate rear-guard action against fascists or zombies. That if I could die buying time for my friends and loved ones to escape then I would die with a smile on my lips.
Of course I am a practical person, and so I don't count on a sudden, convenient, invasion to provide me with such a perfect escape. I broadened my vision when challenged to include any death that benefited anyone I cared for.
Lies catch in my throat and burn on my lips. I made conversation, made flippant comments, laid down laugh lines. I never, ever, told anyone how I would really die. It would, I thought, only worry them.
It would be the first day that I owned a handgun, probably, though I could be patient enough to wait for the first appropriate one.
Of course I would never own a gun that I couldn't use, and use safely. It would be easier to own an instrument that I didn't know how to play, or a tool for which I had no use, and both of those are things that I refuse to do on principal. So I would learn, that day at least I would spend at the range, emptying shell after shell down range, until my muscles quivered and my ears rang under their protectors. I would disassemble and reassemble the pistol until I could do it in my sleep, and clean and oil it for the first time.
When I left the shooting range it would be late in the day, the sun would be turning red, and the pines would cast slanting shadows over the interstate. I would peel out of the driveway in my shiny silver Prius, a car so out of place at a northern Minnesota shooting range as to be almost laughable, and aim even further north, or maybe west. I would be making for the lake.
It could not be just any lake, it had to be Mantrap. The lake is huge, for one thing, and large parts of its coast have been bought up by preservation organizations, leaving it undeveloped. Furthermore, true to its name, it is a chaotic sprawl of interconnected waterways, sub-lakes, and island chains. It has more coves and byways than any other lake I know.
And I grew up on it, or I grew up going to it, and there is still a piece of my heart there.
It would be warm, on that day, unseasonably so, but I will be alone, perhaps I am skilled and my location remote. Perhaps I will be lucky that the right day falls mid-week. Regardless I will be able to take out the boat that I know to be tied on that part of the lake that we call The River, because it is long and narrow enough to boast a current. I would take it to an island "up-river" and there I would find a large rock, worn smooth by the ages.
I would sit on the rock, relishing the warmth of the sun on the back of my neck, and I would feel the weight of the gun in my hand. It would be heavier than I anticipated, but at the end of the day it would be familiar to me.
The barrel would be cold in my mouth, but it would not be uncomfortable. It would rest easily against my soft pallet. I would take my time.
I would let it be, full of intent but without kinetic investment, for a long time. Then I would pull the trigger. The last thing I would see, would be the light of the setting sun, filtered through green leaves.
How can I be sure, you must be thinking, that I won't be hit by a car before I feel right putting my plan into action? There are no roads here, and even if there were it would have to be fast to beat the twitch of a finger.

A bang echoes through the lake, joining the echoes of hunters guns. Not far off a deer is startled. Somewhere, someone, complains about people hunting out of season. Their friend reminds them that it's only illegal if they hit something, and the two laugh about it.
"Adrian" by Mason Jennings will play on an iPod on an island in a lake called Mantrap until the batteries die, almost a week before anyone finds the body in whose ears it was playing.