It happened at about quarter to twelve that Friday night when I was going to church to attend a vigil. It was already late in the night and I was afraid of getting attacked by robbers, so I decided to jog in the attempt to get to my destination faster. As I cut out of this street into the next one, I saw a figure in black overcoat wearing a hat––and he was holding a gun in his gloved hand. I initially thought he was a vigilante, then it struck me he could be a highway robber. I was so afraid that I hid in a nearby bush quoting Psalm twenty-three. It was when the figure aimed the pistol at himself that I sprang out of my hiding, what was actually ringing in my head was to save a man who wanted to kill himself. I ran in the cold air of the night, not because I am brave, which I am not, neither because I am prone to risks, which I am not, but because idleness does not breed salvation. The suicidal man was having his back at me, so I crept silently behind him and grabbed the hand with the gun, we both struggled with each other for some time, that was when he scratched me with his nails. He was trying to break free from me and I was trying to wring the gun off his hand. It was when he turned to face me that I was horrified; he was looking very mad, like a bear with a boil. His face was scary, the teeth bared, and the eyes glitter-ing coldness. He shook his body and pushed me with a growl but I still held unto the gun hand, he kneed me where it made me regret being born a male, I was still nursing the effect of the groin assault when he thrust his clenched knuckle into my breastbone with such impact that I coughed, the sharp blow nearly paralyzing me as it sent a high clinking report in my head. For a moment I thought there was an ancient cathedral nearby and the faithful Christians were being called to church service, I soon realized the bell was in my skull, tolling cacophonously. And the heat in between my legs was not in the least dropping its temperature.

‘I won’t let you kill yourself,’ I said to him, breathing hard.

‘What business of yours is it?’ he said, baptizing me with a fine spray of sa-liver, ‘You should have meddled at your own peril. Your death would aid my plan.’ He swung loose from me and aimed the pistol at me. Sensing the danger coming towards me, I quickly made my action. I’d ended up at the wrong end of a pistol before and I know how terribly a bullet can hurt, if you were not killed. I was very scared––he must not shoot me, yet, if I waited, he would kill me. Then, before he could pull the trigger I rushed him with a speed I didn’t know I possess. Within a split second, it dawned on me that I was no more trying to save the man who wanted to kill myself, I was trying to save myself from the man who wanted to kill me before killing himself. I grabbed the pistol again, trying with the whole of my strength to prevent him from pulling the trigger. But I could not match him in strength, he pushed me roughly and I landed hard right on my back which shook the holy breath out of me, like I had been hit by a truck––I lay where I had fallen, knowing fully well I was alive but reluctant to move my limbs, afraid that broken bones would come poking out of the skin. I looked above me hazily after what seemed to me like a century but was actually a few seconds, and I saw three small holes. It took me a while to realize that two of them were Mr. Martins’ nostrils––he was aiming the gun at me again.

‘Nobody can stop me,’ he roared, ‘Not even you.’ I thought the moment for me to meet my ancestors had come. Mr. Martins was looking like a devil; his eyes were merciless. Set. Decided. His finger on the trigger of the pistol, ready to pull at any moment. He was making a low growling sound that would have done credit to the soundtrack of a horror movie. It was then that I knew he was really ready to kill me.

The pistol pointing at me again made me stand up slowly in an effort of sur-render––no bone poked through my skin. Common sense had told me that you can never be faster than a squeeze of the trigger. No matter how fast you can hit or kick, or how much action movies you’ve watched––I knew Mr. Martins knew that too, and he knew I knew he knew. Then I did something that anyone with an IQ greater than mine would not have dared––I kicked the gun out of his hand.

It’s hard to send that kind of pistol flying; it’s not exactly a light gun. Never-theless, it flew. Before the gun flew out of his hand there was a deafening shot; the shot went past my ear that I thought for a moment that its bullet had taken my brain with it. For a second, I think he look amazed at how stupid I had been before I quickly rushed to the gun and pick it up. He was rushing towards me like a bull when I looked behind me. I knew I would never be so lucky again if he got the gun from me so I shot the pistol as he was closing in on me. Believe me, I never intended to kill him––I only shot the gun to scare him off but the bullet went straight into his head, he fell down lifeless immediately, I thought I shot the pistol wide. My brain must have really been screwed from the fall. I stood there unable to move. What’ve I done? I felt the panic spreading through me, paralyzing me, causing sweat to break out on my face and neck.

Mr. Martins’ head was turned to one side. Even in the dark, his fixed stare was unmistakable. Guilt sutured my heart and mind together, the thought of what I had done caused stitches of pain to pull in my chest. I will never be the same person again, for I had taken a life. Although circumstances had given me no option but to kill or be killed and though I knew Mr. Martins had chosen to serve evil and to serve it well, the gravity of my action weighed on me nonetheless, and I felt diminished in more ways than I could count gone was a certain innocence that I would never be able to regain. I began pacing rapidly back and forth, trembling from fear and exhaustion, rivulets of sweat were rolling down my face, my eyes were wide and darting this way and that at nothing, I had committed not only a terrible crime but a mortal sin in the eyes of God––I had taken another man’s life.