There is a Small TV Mounted in the Cobwebbed Corner of the Breakroom 



by Courtney Tala



 

that is permanently set to the news & today the news is talking about an active shooter incident from

this morning & the breakroom is intrigued, because it happened at the Navy base right down the

street & now, after the shooter is confirmed dead & the victim is in the hospital, the news is calling

it an isolated domestic dispute & in this case, victim is just another word for girlfriend of a man with a hot

temper & a coworker peels his eyes from the screen & says to the room guess she should’ve watched

who she pissed off, huh? & I fail to find the humor in the situation so I look for it in the bottom of my

sad Tupperware while around me, the table erupts in a fit of corporate laughter & I would like to tell my

coworker where he can stick his humor, but by now I have learned that never is the right time to

open my mouth when I am the only woman in the room & it’s been months, but I still remember

my downstairs neighbor’s voice as she screamed over her angry boyfriend & the sound of shattering

glass that came next, then the silence, pierced by the front door slam & when I stepped outside later,

all I could see was blood, quietly dripping down the vinyl siding to pool on the landing outside their

door & I thought it’s none of my business as I called maintenance & asked them to clean the stairs & my

coworkers are still chuckling when the TV shows a clip of a reporter standing outside Oceana, who

says the victim is lucky & in stable condition, which really means her ex-boyfriend emptied five bullets

into her and just had bad aim & the news plays on a continuous loop, so it tells us again that an

incident happened just under six miles from here, which is to say danger is lurking just around the

corner, or maybe just downstairs & my coworkers have finished their lunches now & someone clicks

off the TV. 





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