[ WP ] Write a conversation between two people playing russian roulette .

“ A woman ” said the old man, hand absently fondling the worn silver revolver as he looked across the table at the youth. 
 
 
 
 “ What? ” came the youth ’ s reply, voice quavering slightly, Adams apple bobbing as he struggled to swallow through a throat gone dry. 
 
 
 
 “ You ’ re here because of a woman, it ’ s written all over you. I ’ m right aren ’ t I? ” asked the old man, dragging his thumb downwards in a flick, spinning the barrel around with a whirring hypnotic sound. The old man grinned at his young companion, tobacco stained teeth gleaming from behind his ragged silver moustache. 
 
 
 
 The youth nodded his assent, hair matted to his head with sweat, upper lip quivering slightly as he watched the old man spin the barrel of the pistol, over and over. “ Yeah, I guess so, but you know not just that ” he spoke now, voice firmer as he trod once more on familiar ground. Comforting respite from this chaotic, yammering jungle of humanity where he found himself. 
 
 
 
 The old man grinned a feral grin suddenly and rapidly raised the pistol to his temple. The noise of the crowed stilled with a pop as the atmosphere fled at one hundred breaths all held at once. The old man gazed into his young mirrors clear blue eyes with his yellowing bloodshot green. Smiling wider as his finger tightened on the trigger. All movement in the room ceased, every heart skipped a beat, all eyes stared unblinking on his face. A click. The crowd erupted. Foreign voices shouting over one another, money passed this way and that, shouted lamentations and celebrations raised a cacophony of sound. The old man grinned again, in relief this time and slid the gun across the table to the youth. 
 
 
 
 “ She break your heart? ” asked the old man, quaffing from a filthy bottle of local whisky at his elbow, hissing his satisfaction as it burned down his throat. 
 
 
 
 The youth didn ’ t answer, eyes pinning the pistol to the uneven boards of the roughhewn table. At the exhortations of the crowd he reached a shaking hand and gripped the tape wrapped handle of the gun drawing it to his chest where he cradled it in both of his quivering hands. “ No, I, err, I broke hers ” he spoke still staring at the weapon clasped now like a baby bird to the filthy stained yellow of his singlet. 
 
 
 
 “ Oh, ho ho ” chortled the old man. “ Doesn ’ t seem hardly a reason to end up here in this little piece of hell. You must have done something bad, something really bad ”. 
 
 
 
 The young man nodded slightly head wobbling crookedly on a neck gone to loose taffy with the heat and his terror. The crowd chanted now, baying for blood, begging and screaming with foreign voice for him to raise the gleaming instrument to his head. He lifted the gun on slackened arm, the handle slippery with his acrid sweat. Again the silence, the crowd leaning in, eyes widening in anticipation. A readjustment of his grip, a sharp ragged exhale and a barking cry of defiance as he pulled the trigger. A click. Chaos, screaming, broken glass. Joy and madness washing from the wild surf of humanity dashing itself in its fury against one another. The young man dropped the pistol to the table from a hand gone weak and slumped further in his chair. Small sobs shaking his frame in relief. 
 
 
 
 The old man reached across the table taking the pistol in gentle hand. “ Tell me about it boy, better than dying with such bitter poison in your heart ”. He sat back in his chair, swigging again at his bottle of whisky, ignoring the cries of the crowd caught up in their wagering on the lives of the men at the table. 
 
 
 
 “ I, I broke her heart, I ruined her life. I tore her down. She was perfect and I broke her ” came the youth ’ s confession, words tumbling over one another in this most surreal of confessionals. His priest sat nodding somberly in faded black t-shirt, taking large gulps at his bottle of murky brown hooch as he listened to the young man bare his soul. “ I ruined what I should have loved most ”. 
 
 
 
 The old man smiled a slight pitying smile and took grip of the pistol again. “ That ’ s the way of the world my boy, we always end up destroying what we should protect the most. We always tear down perfection with our anger, our weakness, our goddamned indifference ”. Once again the pistol was raised, the blood-warm barrel pressed to the quivering pulse of the old man ’ s temple. Again a hush, worshippers stunned to silence in this most holy of churches. This decisive cathedral of death. The trigger was pulled, slowly, become heavy with the promise of oblivion. A click. True animal shrieks now, words abandoned in an orgy of ecstatic chaos, the thunder of many hearts beating loud in sweat soaked chests deafening in the intimacy of the room. 
 
 
 
 The boys eyes widened, the room blurred behind stained glass of tears and smoke. The old man reached out and placed the gun in the youth ’ s unresponsive hand. The boy sat hiccoughing now in small barking sobs. He drew deep on a ragged breath, dashing tears from his eyes with the back of his filthy hand. Staring once again across the table at his confessor and enemy. “ It ’ s just so hard though ”. The old man nodded his assent. “ why did it end up like this? ” he asked, expecting no answer and receiving none. The crowd froze once more as he raised the pistol. The only sound the steady drip of his tears falling free to the table below. Each thudding drop ringing out in the mausoleum silence of the room. The gun shook, his hand shook, the world around him shook. A bang.
