"The Sweet Taste of Success"

(Descriptive memoir-esque fiction)

           Each breath and every heartbeat rocks my vision like a buoy in stormy water. The grip is the wrong shape for my outstretched hands. The green sponges in my ears make the noises around me sound like they do in dreams: slow, murky, and blurred. I take a deep breath, but my heart keeps racing. The detachment from my hearing makes everything surreal. Am I really doing this? 

Through the muddy echoes outside my ears, a voice reassures me. Adjusting my grip and planting my feet more firmly, I hold my breath and squint one eye, and my vision steadies. There it is, the crisp white sheet. Then I pull back the hammer, shift my pointed finger into a curl around the trigger, and squeeze. The explosion punches my left hand like a metal fist as the barrel spurts flame, and the smoke and the gunpowder that settles deep in my throat tastes strangely sweet. I lower my hands and look down the lane. The sheet of paper sways gently, a clean black hole through the circle of red. Bull’s-eye.