Felicity

Surprised

 There were two things in Sabrina’s cramped but well organized bedroom that were obviously out of place. One was a woman, in her twenties at a guess, with an explosion of pointed unkempt golden hair, two sleepy red eyes and a mocking white smile. The other was the solid black gun, reflecting the twilight rays of the sun sneaking through the bedroom window that overlooked the residential street below, a bright streak of light etched on to its polished barrel.

 Sabrina Stone Steeples stood motionless for a moment, still frozen at his bedroom door at the unexpected sight of a visitor and the even more unexpected sight of the gun pointing at his pounding chest. He considered readjusting his forever tilted glasses to confirm reality but stopped himself for fear of getting shot in the process. His thoughts flew and bounced through his head like a rubber ball thrown by an overexcited child:

 What the hell is this woman doing in my room, how did she get in? This is the second floor damn it! What sort of athletic thief is this, please go and use your athletic capabilities elsewhere! Go and win the Olympics or something and leave me alone! Wait! Is this a dream? Am I going to wake up in a few seconds? Maybe I should pinch myself to check if I’m dreaming. No, the crazy woman might shoot me and just in case this utterly stupid turn of events isn’t a dream but some sarcastic parody of reality, I’d rather not get shot in the chest…

 Then the metaphorical rubber ball hit the metaphorical child in the face and Sabrina shouted, “What the hell are you doing in my room!”

 “You’re Sabrina Stone Steeples, male, sixteen, currently a pupil in Prince College Private School, right?” droned the woman, with words so dead that had Sabrina not been in a state of shock he would have wondered whether some medical operation had taken place to remove every last micrometer of enthusiasm from each and every one of the syllables which crawled dejected from between her thin red lips.

 “yes” coughed Sabrina, taken aback by the sudden question.

 “Well I’m here to kill you.”

 The metaphorical toddler threw the ball again: Why does she know that about me? Not a thief but a stalker? Was I that popular with the ladies? In which case should I still be mortally afraid or mildly flattered? …Wait a nanosecond! Kill me!?

 The metaphorical ball plowed into the metaphorical toddler’s face at the metaphorical speed of 70 miles per hour. “What! Why do I have to be killed!” shrieked Sabrina at an octave so high it would have had the school choir master rushing to get him enlisted and the school nurse rushing to check the welfare of his testicles.

 “Sabrina? Weird name for a guy huh” chuckled the woman tiredly.

 Vaguely recognizing that he had been ignored, Sabrina shouted again, “Why do you want to kill me!”

 The woman looked up, lazily raising one thin pale eyebrow she half sighed half scoffed as if explaining one plus one to an oxford professor of mathematics, “It’s because you’re a dick.”

 The metaphorical toddler lay bleeding with an inverted face but the metaphorical rubber ball of thought bounced nonetheless: I suppose I should have guessed that if ever I was going to die it would either be because of old age or as a direct consequence of being a dick. I suppose it’s not that surprising.

 Indeed Sabrina Steeples was a dick, an unpleasant human being in every sense of the word who took a certain twisted joy in knowing this. He was described as a “total dick” in the school album by no less than three quarters of pupils in his class independently and without prior mutual discussion. The remaining twenty five percent had used far stronger terms, which were not suitable for publication but were published nonetheless due to the extreme loathing even the teachers had felt for him.