carvers first reaction was to remain his last reaction too : he never saw the gun that she held ; couldnt even have been able to testify , in the millisecond that he might have had to register the fact , that the bullet even hurt , or that he felt it at all , in fact ; he didnt hear the beer bottle smash as it fell on the floor ; he didnt see the stain of red blood slowly soaking deeper into the thick pile of his newly laid white carpet ; and he wasnt aware that his woman caller had stepped over his body in order to enter his apartment and turn off the television set , or that at the very moment that the bright pixels on the screen turned to black , the vestigial image was that of the tower of black power finally crumbling in on itself .