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I’m at the pumps at a Chevron, leaning against my car while I watch the numbers tick away. A woman drives up to the next pump in a black Mercedes. A big red SUV pulls up at the pump next to her. A small man in a strange vest climbs out and puts his VISA in the slot. The woman hasn’t gotten out of her car yet; she’s checking her make-up in her rear-view mirror. The man in the vest walks into the mini-mart. The woman is finished with her make-up and gets out of her Mercedes. She’s wearing a vest like the other man’s. It doesn’t look as stylish as the rest of her clothes. She glances my way and her eyes widen. She asks me why I’m not wearing a vest. I ask her what she means. She tells me I’m going to get killed going to a gas station without a bulletproof vest. I laugh and she turns away angrily. The small man comes back out of the mini-mart with a soda in his hand. Suddenly there’s a loud bang, and he falls to the ground. Caffeine-Free Diet Pepsi spills out all over the ground. The man complains about his wasted soda as he stands up. There’s a bullet in his vest. He doesn’t seem to notice. The woman looks at me with an I-told-you-so smile. She gets back in her Mercedes and drives away. The man climbs back inside his monster SUV and drives away, too. I hear another loud bang and concrete flies up by my feet. I disconnect the pump, jump back in my car, and burn rubber.

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This was the eighth assignment in a creative writing class I took several years ago. I don't remember exactly what the assignment was, but it was supposed to be something strange, and we had to include names of companies/products in it. There was a sniper (or two?) operating in Virginia, I think, at the time. People were overreacting, in my opinion, and talking like it was the end of the civilized world or something. This was meant to poke fun at their overreaction. The funny thing is that nobody in the class seemed to understand the strangeness in this story, because they took it literally as something that seemed likely to happen!