Pistol ~ Camille Luciana Garcia

That was how it happened. Nobody would believe a three-year-old kid. I didn't even know enough to tell anybody. It just happened there she was.

I remember my babysitter a couple weeks earlier saying that the next door neighbor had bought a gun. I didn't think anything. I knew what a gun was. But that was about it.

My mother dropped me off at the sitter's house one morning after she took my dad to the factory where he worked a punch press.

I stood after ringing the sitter's door bell.

No one answered.

Then I noticed a woman standing at the door of the next house down the street.

She was holding a pistol. It was pointed at me. She had no expression, to speak of, on her face. She just stood there holding the gun. Looking at me. I looked back at her not having the faintest idea how to react. I wasn't afraid. I was too young. Then somehow I realized my first perception of the situation had been wrong. She did, indeed, have an expression. It was subtle, yet powerful. It said, "I have power over you because of this thing I'm pointing at you."

Photo by Sofia Sforza