I have shot the messenger. I did. I have. I have shot him dead.

I shot him dead because he looked at me cross and mocked me with a message sent from others that read, "You're not good enough anymore. You'll be finished soon. They're coming." It stuck in my craw. It burned my skin.

I shot the messenger thirty-six and one half times, but I could have shot him more. I should have shot him more. I just ran out of time. After my fourteenth shot, when I knew he would die, I stopped to flash a gang sign to my friend, and I stopped again at twenty-one to flash that sign again. At thirty-three, as the messenger lay dying, I paused to celebrate, held my bullet high, straight above my head for all the world to see. I tried to shout a crack of thunder, to fire it from my chest to both ends of the earth, but I couldn't make a sound come out. Killing the messenger had stolen my voice.

I'd heard it before, what the messenger delivered. I'd heard it and hated it and wished to hear it stop. That moment in time when sound becomes silence goes unnoticed by ears too often. But my ears hear it all. That sound to them is sweet--a song, a syrup, a savior.

And so I finally shot the messenger. I did. I shot him dead. Thirty six and one half times. He fell hard and cracked the ground beneath him.

When I turned to walk away from where I'd shot the messenger, a little boy without a name ran up to me. "Mister. Mister. At last you've shot the messenger! You've saved us all! Can you rest now? Are you fine?"

I took a knee to look him straight in the eye and put my hand upon his shoulder. His eyes were brown like his skin, which the sun had stained darker. "Boy," I said, and I spun him around and pointed to the mountains surrounding us on every side. Upon the eastern mountain a human silhouette was rising to the top. To the north a tiny speck was hiking down one side. And to the south, atop the highest peak, a figure waved semaphores and danced. "Do you see those shadows on top of those hills way, way, way out there?" I asked the boy without a name. He nodded yes. "Those shadows are messengers, too. They'll be here soon with messages." And the boy without a name didn't say a word. He just looked at me. "Pretty soon up there," I said, and I pointed to the mountain to the west, where no shadow could yet be seen. "Pretty soon from up there a messenger will come too. And he'll carry a message as unkind as the others. Because that's what messengers do. They keep coming to bring us messages."

The boy shuddered and cried and begged, "Save us, please!"

And I told him, "Don't worry. Be a kid now. Let me. I will."

And I prayed to God for the strength to shoot them too.