Security Feed
by Helen W.
Set after Blind Man's Bluff
The image was so grainy it hurt to look at, and there was no sound. It took Jim, standing behind the sofa, jacket still on, an unforgivable stretch of moments to understand what Blair was watching.
It was a tape of the feed from one of the garage's security cameras. The gun-waving figure on the car was Blair.
Jim remained silent, transfixed, as the figure rotated and took a shot. How many total had Blair taken? Odd that he didn't know.
Jim watched himself slowly, slowly approach Blair, clapping his hands so that he could use the reverberations to navigate; watched Blair hand him the revolver, then clap the demons away; watched Blair take his hand and let Jim and Simon ease him to the ground; watched himself enfold Blair in his arms, two tiny figures huddled on the concrete.
The scene stopped; Blair had paused the tape. "In about ten seconds there are so many cops and EMTs you can't even see us," he said, turning his head toward Jim.
"You've seen it all?" Jim asked.
"This is my third time through. I think I'm done."
"Who gave this to you? This is evidence!"
"They made more copies than they needed," said Blair, shrugging.
"Nobody should have let you see it."
"Yeah, right, man," said Blair, chuckling; then, "Come on, sit down before I get a crick in my neck."
Jim, not seeing humor in any of this, obeyed, moving to the chair and sinking in.
"That's…" Blair started, and it took him an unSandburgian number of seconds to continue, "Pretty intense."
"Yeah, it was," said Jim.
"What kind of idiot approaches a madman with a gun? When the idiot can't see?"
"Depends on who the madman with the gun is," said Jim. "And the idiot, I suppose."
"Yeah."
"And it worked. You can't hold a gun and clap at the same time."
"I was scaring away the golden fire people." It wasn't quite a question.
"Yes, that's what you said."
"So I guess I remember it all, pretty much… I guess that's good."
"Trust me, it is."
Blair nodded, granting the point. "Thank you," he said.
"It was…" well, not exactly nothing… And anyway, if you were keeping score, he and Blair were more-or-less even…
"No, really, thanks, Jim," said Blair. "It mattered, how you got me off the car, how you… everything you did." He gestured toward the television, where their image was still frozen. "It really mattered."
"'S okay," said Jim. "Any time."
* * * THE END * * *
Hope you liked it! But I'd love to hear from you no matter what.
