Edison was alone in his high-rise tapping away on his laptop. His schedule was open but he found things to do and the hours melted away as the sun changed its position. Walking back from the kitchen with a glass of water in his hand he distinctly heard his gun talking to him, from inside one of the drawers of the small cabinet. It was muffled but he heard it say “pick me up” in a little tinny voice. His wife had always cautioned against guns, as his mother had. Now they were both gone but the gun was still here. For now he ignored it and went back to tweaking his website. But a little later he was returning from the bathroom and the gun got louder, “Come on, Edison. Yoo-hoo!” He stopped and stared at the closed drawer. It seemed to be drawing him towards it like a magnet. He went back to work but he kept picturing the gun and there was a nagging feeling.

Finally he got up and went over to the drawer. “Don’t just stand there,” the gun said quietly. Edison put his hand on the brass drawer pull. He opened the drawer and stared at the gun. It looked bigger than life, like a movie gun. “Pick me up, Edison.” The gun said. He picked the gun up. “Now do it.” He put the gun down and slammed the drawer, heading into the kitchen. He poured himself a shot. That’s when the big steak knife whistled. “Hey, Eddie. Don’t you have some chopping to do?” it said in a breathy whisper.

He was out on the balcony with the whiskey and a half-full tumbler when his sister Carly arrived and let herself in. She wanted him to show her something on the computer. “I’m not going back in there,” he told her. “You’re kidding me,” she said.

“No, I’m not kidding,” he replied, drinking some whiskey from the tumbler. About ten minutes later she stood in the doorway to the balcony, holding the steak-knife and the revolver. He stared at her dumbly. “Didn’t you just ask for these?” she asked.

“No, I didn’t.”

“Whatever. I’ll leave them here if you need them.” She set the gun and knife on a table by the door and went back to the computer.

A little while later she called to him, “Eddie!” She sighed. “What’s your frickin’ password?” When he didn’t answer she went out to the balcony. His bottle and glass rested beside an empty chair. Eddie was gone. “Eddie!” She slowly moved to the edge of the balcony and looked down the eighteen floors. Eddie was down there all right, spread-eagled on the pavement. Carly choked. But then she heard a voice. “Hey Carly. Pick me up.” She spun around. “Pick me up.” She leaned down, putting her ear next to the gun to hear if it was, in fact, talking. “Carly, pick me up, babe,” it said. She picked up the whiskey and drank straight from the bottle.

Then she ran around in circles, wringing her hands. Finally she called 911. But when the investigators arrived it was too late. She held the gun and opened fire on them as they came through the door. The first two went down. But then the others shot her in the leg and managed to wrestle the gun out of her hand and restrain her.

After she was taken away two cops went through the apartment. “That was one fucked up family,” one of the cops said, dropping the spent shells into a bag. “Hey, if a gun started talking to me I would have done the same thing,” the other cop replied. Then he busted out laughing. After first helping himself to some beer nuts in a bowl, he turned and went out of the apartment. The other cop looked over at the gun and steak knife which had been placed on the counter. Then he snuck the last swallow of whiskey from the bottle, shaking his head. He laughed quietly to himself and went back to work.

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