The guy I was with was named Mo. He wore ripped jeans and an old button-down blue work shirt. We hadn’t talked much prior to him joining me in the excursion, and now didn’t seem the time to. He bounced a crowbar in one hand nervously. We looked at each other. After a tentative moment, he smiled at me and jerked his head in the direction of the store.

“Let’s go find what we can,” he said.

His heavy work boots that looked like he had arrived in them and my fancy Italian boots crunched over broken glass, slid in the mud. We were wearing heavy clothes and gloves, but if we fell in this shit, it would rip us to pieces, and the wounds would be hard to clean. We walked as carefully as we could toward the store.

The store had already been ransacked somewhat, but a lot of good stuff remained. I found a pack of cigarettes forgotten behind some cans of food. I grabbed both. I hoisted my ass up on the counter and ripped open the pack. I found a lighter on the counter near where I was sitting, in an almost empty display of them. I lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply. I hadn’t had one since my oussies ran out back in Jaden’s building. I coughed and coughed, and then inhaled deeply again, closing my eyes. It was so good that for a minute, I forgot where we were.

When I opened my eyes there was a guy in a uniform standing in front of me, pointing a gun directly in my face.

“Don’t fucking move!” he yelled.

“What?” I said. My cigarette dropped out of my mouth and onto my lap. I let it burn there because I was afraid to move. I felt it singeing through my pants and into the flesh of my leg.

“Let me guess,” he said, “honoring the memory of people who died in this disaster by looting a fucking store?”

“I’m just hungry, I’m thirsty,” I said. “What are you, some kind of cop or something?” My hands were up and my voice was shaking. I was staring down that barrel, knowing it could hold the end of my life. I wasn’t ready to die. I was not ready for everything to be over.

“Yes, I’m some fucking kind of cop. Now get the fuck down from there before I put a bullet in your motherfucking head.”

I jumped down, my hands still in the air. Then I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t even hear anything, just saw a flash. Then the cob roller was on the ground, and a puddle of blood was forming around his head on the dirty tile floor. Mo was standing over him with his crowbar, shaking.

“What have I done?” he kept saying. “What have I done?”