a victim

She remains in the hospital, recovering from the gunshot wound suffered during the attack. She was a secretary, still is, or still will be. It wasn’t being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was her place. She’d worked in the office, there, for five years. Nothing, of course, ever happened like this. When he walked in, she’d had a tiny flash of panic that something was wrong, or was about to be wrong. He had words with the receptionist, then reached into his pocket, pulled out a gun and started shooting. He hadn’t aimed at her, not so that she remembered. It was more he just started shooting, at anything and at nothing. The first bullet hit her in the hip, fracturing her femur. The second hit her in the back. Funny, both times she didn’t feel pain, but just a thump or thunk. The doctors said she might not walk, again, and she wasn’t so angry with the shooter as she was with her God. She believed He had control over everything. So: why her? She’d since stopped praying and resorted, instead, to hoping. She was 27 and had her whole life in front of her. Had. Despite her injuries, the doctors said she could expect to live a long life, one, she knew, now, she might spend questioning the existence of her God, or any God. Just so you know, her name was Millie. Is Millie.