She was sitting at her part-time office job typing away, merely copying text word for word from a scanned image in the same font. What she would give to be able to copy and paste the long paragraphs. Her mother had recently had a stroke, and while she wanted to devote all of her time towards her college degree, she was stuck at this soul sucking computer in a small windowless box with dry air that often gave her nosebleeds. The chair that she sat in for hours was likely crushing her organs irreparably over time anyway. The money wasn't much, but it was enough to get her and her mother by. Her father had gone to the liquor store and never returned when she was six. She didn't really have aspirations, she was just following the status quo, being a good girl and doing what her mother and society would have wanted her to do. Possibly what her dad would have wanted, but she'd never know. She had contemplated suicide in this seemingly pointless life, spending the majority of her hours without sunlight focused on the computer until her eyes strained, formatting some paper about sales that would make no difference in the world fifty years from now, let alone tomorrow. What would her life be like anyway, living with a mother that would gargle commands through drooping lips, desperately clinging to her child's pencil skirt and gasping for assistance in release from a life that had lingered far too long for her taste. Everything was a weight on her back and she was losing her ability to tread water. If this was what life was like, she might as well give in and watch the fish swim. How would she do it? Stick her head in an oven? Leave the car running? Slit her wrists like some emo chick? Would she bring her mother with her or leave her out in the cold?
Suddenly there was a loud bang on the office door. Did Larry forget the code to the keypad again? Then it sounded like a cannon, leaving her ears ringing as shrapnel and wood fragments blew over her cubicle walls. She couldn't see much due to the reinforcement of her box-like bunker. Who would attack some side street nobody office concerned with sales? Then she recalled asking herself how her greasy Serbian boss somehow could afford the suits and variety of cars he showed up in the parking garage with. That rat bastard was running some scam out of their know nothing office. She didn't know whether to laugh or kick him in the balls. As she swiveled her chair to address this matter, she was met with the point of a knife, gleaming in the fluorescent light. She could feel her heart racing as she followed the metal back to a purple robed arm and a padded suit shoulder and wet looking hair seeming as if it had been dyed with lime Koolaid. She continued to shift her gaze to the charcoal rimmed brown eyes that watched her carefully and the Glasgow smile that widened slowly around his smoker's teeth. What made him so happy? Then she examined herself, and found that upon his appearance her smile had widened along with her pupils. She wasn't afraid to die, she welcomed it. Her heart wasn't pumping in fear, it was in exhilaration. She was looking in a mirror, towards the kindred chaos of her soul. Her body piqued for sensation as the point brushed the corner of her mouth, clinking against her teeth and moving outward in the formation of her grin. The clown pulled back the front of his purple lapel with one hand and she panted in anticipation as they both looked down at the pistol protruding from the lip of his pants, behind the clasp of his suspender. He looked back into her shinning blue eyes. She nodded in excited acceptance. That would be a quicker, less messy ordeal. He folded up the knife and placed it in his chest pocket, aside a flower. She became aware of the gunshots echoing around her and said a goodbye to Rick, her weak-minded office romance. She could feel the warm liquid seeping down her cheek from where the knife had been lightly dragged across her cheek, it must have been like a razor. She suddenly felt a jealous pang, wishing someone would have shined her and sharpened her against this world. The man placed a gloved finger on the trigger and her eyes were tearing at the gift she had been given as she watched the stranger intently, devoutly watching her. A fevered blush met her face. With a clicking noise in the barrel, out shot a red flag with the word "Bang!" written in some comic font. She took in a sharp breath and looked back up to her provider of life in confusion. He breathed in with her and his body twisted backward in laughter, his hand on his forehead then slapping at his thigh; the red flag waving with his movements. Harleen sat there awestruck as the man walked away from the bent entrance of her cubicle, dancing deftly around the bodies of her slain coworkers.
The sound of his fading laughter with the approaching echo of sirens was his only goodbye.