There was no mistaking...

Andrew Ervin

There was no mistaking that he had been shot. It was a new sensation but a recognizable one for which no appropriate similes existed. It wasn’t like anything. Not the sharp sting of an insect or like being hit in the stomach with a hammer. It didn’t feel like anything except what it feels like to get shot. He knew now. Either the impact or the entry caused him to ejaculate in his pants. His fluids glued his clothing to his body. The wound wasn’t a small toothless mouth or a reproduction of "Ascent of the Blessed" done the size of an Indian Head nickel: it was a bullet hole in his stomach. The metaphors arrived slowly. His belly now contained a tiny baby of lead who sucked the nutrients from his body. Then it was a fisherman’s sinker plugging a hole in the ocean. A .45 mm paperclip fastening his mortality to his immortality.