Mark's Pages

March 2, 2003:

Solid oak office door, locked. Clack-clack of office heels running in the hallway. Smell of gunpowder, like childhood capguns. Firecracker pop-pop. The eyes of your boss wide with fear.

Afternoonlight through the window. Thirty-four floors, street of police and ambulances and television crews. You've got a FedEx package that must go out. They'll never allow the driver through the barricades. Police assault teams in flack jackets rush the foyer. They'll have to run up thirty-four flights of stairs. Pop-pop-pop: people die in the hallway.

Street of single-family homes. Lawn ornaments, flags, sunshine.

Police at the door. "We're very sorry."

Your daughters miss school the next few weeks, grief over loss of their father mingled with pleasure for the holiday. "Of course," you think. "It happened on a golf course."

Death invests every detail with new meaning. Afterward there are never any routine days, ever, for the rest of your life.