Existence Unremembered

I view it as a privilege to be present at someone’s passing, to play a part in changing the trajectory of one life and by extension, the lives of many others. These were my thoughts as the angry blast left the muzzle of my rifle, carrying despair in its unalterable path. The woman saw the flash of my powder and a moment of horror registered in her face. I love being present to witness that moment of realization.    
   
At this nameless woman’s most beautiful time in life, her sharing of what was most treasured would be interrupted by a single 223 caliber bullet. The surgical entry wound that appeared on her chest belied the bullet’s expansion as it came to rest within her. The world seemed to pause, the air to thicken, as she crumpled forward like a marionette with severed strings, succumbing to an irreversible defeat. In that moment, a web of sorrow burst forth, its tendrils reaching out to ensnare the hearts of those tethered to her by bonds of love and friendship though could only suspect this at the time.  
   
Dan, her husband of twenty-one years, was standing in their home, unaware that his wife was in the arms of another man, a man whose ties to the underworld of crime placed any person nearby at risk.    
   
Perhaps his wife died in the instant that he hugged their daughter before she left on a date. Jen was the embodiment of her mother’s legacy, beautiful and smart. Earlier that same day, her mother had helped her complete a college application. The loss of her mother would cast long shadows over her life for years to come.    
   
Miles away, Donna's elderly mother, Emily, was cradling a cup of tea while working on a scrapbook and reminiscing over photographs that chronicled her daughter's journey from carefree childhood to spirited womanhood. The news of her child's demise would be a cruel reversal of the natural order, a pain no parent should endure.  
   
At the moment of this woman’s death, countless others were affected. I was mindful of this though I wouldn’t learn their stories until my sentencing. The reverberations of this woman’s death altered the courses of many lives.  
   
But as the victims of my deed stood to speak, I thought of the cruel march of time. It doesn’t care for the tragic drama of human death and sorrow. In a hundred years, the world will have turned, and the echoes of these lives and mine will have faded into the silence of history, our stories untold and our existence unremembered.