Writing Prompt: An Event I Didn't Witness

The bank teller didn’t move. The town’s population and rural community didn’t exactly require training for such emergencies. Should she push the Red Button? Was that a thought from a movie? She couldn’t remember how the alarm system worked. She was still stacking the silver coins, not pretending to count but not wanting to break the rhythm—it felt normal in this moment.

The bank did not have a Red Button. The security system consisted of some invisible “walls” around the vault and the shotguns in many of the pickups parked outside. She decides that she would not be opposed to Concealed Carry. Her imagination handles the situation in the only way it knows, a Quentin Tarantino-style massacre beginning with an aerobatic leap over the counter and a hand whipping pistol from boot strap. She blinks and he is gone. A thin smear of blood follows to the Conference Room. There is silence. Her ears fill with cotton, and she is under water. Time begins again. She runs at the door.

Frustration had been building for a while. He was tired of watching his large Back Yard fill with electric towers and fencing. He was tired of the traffic, of no one yielding to the signs. The snow was melting. Spring was coming—he could feel it in his bones. This time of year always got to him. He was even more frustrated, more anxious, more alone.

He had nothing in mind when he got to town. He hadn’t planned to be irrational or to make a statement. He was walking, lost in thought, and ended up downtown. The storefronts were somewhat mesmerizing, calming. He began to forget.

And then there he was. Staring back at him from inside the bank, the competition. Even here, he couldn’t find peace. That bastard. He charged, ready to end it this time.

The glass shattered. No one knew what to think. The bank teller was stunned. He was frozen for a second, his mind reeling from the impact. And then he went wild. Sprinting from front to back, crashing against wall and counter—he couldn’t find his man. And he left the way he had come, leaving only his blood smears and hoof prints behind.

It is assumed that the deer, who entered the closed conference room window of Fifth Third Bank thought he was charging at a fellow buck. The hard head crashed through the glass and left him confused. Bank personnel heard the noise and paused—Was someone breaking in? They found the conference room empty, followed the blood and debris, but missed the buck in the circular path back to the broken window.