Seven dead, twelve injured. The condensation from this drink is blooming into the napkin underneath it. “America’s World Class Beer” is written in small letters across the napkin. The news is seeping from mouths to inky headlines to hearts. It seeps until it reaches the edge of the frail paper napkin. Until the last distant relative, last high school teacher has been notified.
Seven dead, twelve injured. Recount. Eight dead. Statistics. I too am a statistic; I am one of the seven billion people in the world that did not just get shot at the concert down the street. I could have been; it would have been the most significant moment in my life. Achievement Unlocked: you were the one that got away because you got in the middle. My mind foams. Eight dead, I could have been number nine.

The napkin will tear if I lift my glass because it is almost soaked through. I won’t bother asking the bartender for a new one – she left thirty minutes ago with everyone else when they said it was safe to relocate. Or maybe it was an hour ago or maybe it was three.

When will that woman stop wailing? She’s not here anymore but I can still hear her sniveling someone’s name and I hate her for it. Her bleating cries churn my stomach, or maybe it’s the alcohol I’ve been guzzling. Pitiful, writhing sobs that screw up my face in disgust. They were too familiar, too close to my ears, tapping at that place I’ve tried to cover with a clay face. I can’t think about it, I can’t think about how the weatherman said it would be warm that day…

He said it would be the hottest day we’ve had in autumn so far, but I wore my full suit anyways because goddammit he had been wrong the past three days and I wasn’t about to believe him on the fourth. I was starting to think weather forecasting was all just a scam. The pavement was already heating up when I walked from my car to the church. The dimensions of the two dark mahogany boxes were what struck me. I imagined my geometry teacher asking me to find the volume. What is the volume of a box that’s 84” by 24” by 23”? How many children had unknowingly found the volume of a casket while doing their math homework? But there was something else about the boxes, the disgusting size of a box made for a human. The logical assumption the brain makes when it sees such a box is that the only thing that would fit in it would be another human. The dark wood was warm to the touch. Too warm, I thought. They should be cold by now. The day begged for rain. The water in the sky would have hugged the air closer around my shoulders, the gentle pressure just enough to have kept them from shaking. But the day baked on and I cursed that weatherman for bringing the drought.

The woman is crying again – no, she’s not because I am alone. When will the blue and red lights stop flashing on the wall? If someone was sitting next to me their back would block the lights, but no one is, so they’re glaring at my eyes and it’s too bright. My brain is knocking on my skull but I drown its pleas with another heavy sip. I set my glass down on the torn napkin reading "America's Wor" and "ld Class Beer". My mind foams.