He has a flower on his gun.

         A flower.  Bright pink, in your face.

         On his gun.

         Which, I guess is even more in your face.  Or rather, in my face.

         But it’s the flower, not the gun, that’s grabbing my attention.

         They say that mortal peril makes you focus on strange things, and apparently it’s true.

There’s a gun pointed at me, but all I can think about is the flower.  What is it doing there?  What

does it mean?

         It can’t have got caught there by accident, and he just hasn’t noticed.  I mean, it’s bright

pink.  And it’s right there.  It’s all I can see, so there’s no way he can’t see it too.

         Which means he must have put it there deliberately.  Selected this bloom in particular -

the size, the shape, the hue.

         There’s a gun in my face and I’m coming up with words like ‘hue’.

         But he must have chosen it specially, and taken the time to fix it there.

         On his gun.

         The gun that’s pointed at me right now.

         And now that I’m thinking about it, how is it even stuck on there?  I can’t tell from where

I am.  It’s too far away to see what’s keeping the flower attached.  Is it glue?  Is there tape?

Some kind of string?

         Am I really in this situation, thinking that I want to get closer to the gun that’s pointed at

me, so I can see how exactly the gunman has attached the flower?

         To his gun.

         I’m just standing there, dumbstruck, transfixed by the bright pink petals.

         But his eyes are on me.

         I can feel his gaze, heavy and menacing.

         He speaks.

         “So, what have you got to say for yourself?”

         And what can I say?

         In the situation I find myself in, with a gun pointed at my face, are there really any words

I can find that will make a difference?

         I swallow, and nod towards the perfect pink bloom that stands out so clearly and strongly

in this image before me.

“Nice flower,” I say.