12-08-80

.8.

"So what are some more of your 'super powers'?" I asked.

John straitened up. "Well there's the regular heat vision and Ultraviolet rays..." He joked.

I punched his shoulder playfully. "You know what I mean!"

"Seriously though. I can see through walls! It's amazing! I can also walk through them." John laughed. I almost didn't believe him but he seemed so genuinely excited. "I can even do this..." John stopped talking. I watched him a moment and then he disappeared from my sight. Not all at once, but slowly. Almost so that didn't even notice it.

"Isn't this awesome!" He said.

I blinked several times to make sure I wasn't seeing things.

I wasn't.

John reappeared but this time all at once.

"You impressed?" He laughed.

"Yes! Yes I am!" I giggled.

"Okay. So now that I've told you about myself. What's your super power?" John asked me.

I scoffed. "I have no super powers. If I did I wouldn't be sitting here."

"Oh..." John sighed, evidently deeply hurt.

"Oh no! Not like that! You've been great! I just meant that I'd go back in time and live in the sixties." I apologized.

"Oh well that's understandable." John chuckled. "But seriously! You can see me! That's a super power!" John encouraged me.

"Yeah, some super power! I can talk to dead people and have conversations of a lifetime and nobody on earth believes me!" I groaned.

"No one believes you?"

"No one!" I confirmed. "Excluding Adam, who can also see ghosts... I mean spirits."

"You learn quickly!" John chuckled.

I felt privileged to witness his legendary derp face in person. I had several friends who would undoubtedly kill to see it. It occurred to me that that was exactly what I was doing.

"John?" I asked after some time.

"Yes?"

"How am I gonna kill Chapman?" I asked pitifully.

John sighed sadly. "With a gun I guess."

"No I mean as a person how can I take somebody's life?" I restated.

"I don't know." John said in a whisper.

"I mean my whole live you've been saying 'peace' 'no violence'! How can I just change that?" I complained.

"Julian maybe we should train." John suggested.

"Okay." I shuddered. Tears filled my eyes. John sat down beside me and hugged me.

"It will be okay." John cooed.

I nodded.

"Do you know of anyone with a gun we can swipe?" John inquired.

"I have one." I confessed.

"Well if you own a gun you foresaw on using it one day, right?" John laughed.

"No! I just kept it in case someone was trying to hurt me." I informed him.

"I understand." John smiled. "Why don't you fetch it?"

I stood and dried my tears and walked slowly into my bed room. I unlocked the drawer where my notebook laid. I pulled out the gun and walked back into the living room. John stood by the front door holding out my coat.

"We're going to the gun range." He said in answer to my questioning look.

I took my coat from him and we set out walking to the local gun range. John and I got there and he directed me to stand in the exact position I would need to stand to hit Chapman and not John.

I practiced shooting at a spirit that wasn't there.

When we left I felt even less prepared. It hadn't made it better, it just showed how bad I was gonna make it.

"I will do my best John." I said on our way home.

John just sighed and walked ahead of me. I felt terrible. I couldn't let him down. I resolved to do my best, and train day and night until the eighth. John took a try at the drums for my wii. He put earphones on to tune me out I guessed. So I decided to go to bed. I would need to be fully rested to do my absolute best.

I laid in my bed listening to John beat my drum set with so much force I was waiting for a crack that meant he had broken the sticks. At some point the drumming stopped and I heard my door open. I acted as if I was really asleep.

John came to the side of my bed and sat down. He leaned down and kissed my forehead. "Don't give up on me..." He sighed. John stood up and walked out. But a second later the door opened back up. "Oh and uh...I kind of broke your drum stick. Sorry." John apologized. When he closed the door I wasn't mad. In fact I smiled and then wiped the tears from my eyes.