text: The decrepit vagrant limps into the gas station and the three customers in line immediately recoil from the stench. They leave a wide berth and avoid eye contact, as if she is Medusa, her long, greasy blond hair really a nest of snakes. Perhaps they simply don’t wish to acknowledge the gaunt woman, for doing so would also acknowledge unpleasant truths. She stands at the door for some time, taking in the store and its patrons. No one bothers to calculate exactly how long she stands there; no one risks meeting her gaze. After a half minute or incalculable eons, Medusa takes her place at the end of the line. Hands in the pockets of her stained and tattered jeans, she waits patiently until it’s her turn to approach the world-weary man behind the grimy, sticky counter. He makes a point to not sully his hands by coming in contact with the residue of a thousand different people that sits on the surface in front of him. While empires rise and fall, the second-hand of the clock above the register makes a full rotation, and it’s finally her turn. “Can I help you?” the queasy clerk asks, as politely as one can with a fetid snake nest barely two feet away. Medusa frowns while her right hand fumbles in the pocket of her ragged hoodie. The clerk begins to repeat his question, but is cut off by the barrel of a Colt M1911 pointed directly at his mouth. The dead-eyed Medusa plainly states her desires: “Give me all the money in the register.” She follows this with an incentive for the petrified cashier: “Or you’ll die.” It is only now that the customers behind her pay her any mind. A man lets out a loud gasp; a woman utters expletives to no one in particular; others remain still in shocked silence. All except for a man coming out of the bathroom, the roar of the fan deafening him to the occurrence on the sales floor. It takes a single eternity for him to assess the situation and, tickled that his wife’s usual protests about “that thing” were demonstrably moot, removes his concealed Beretta M9 from the inside of his jacket. He’s been waiting for a moment like this all his life, and he relishes it as he carefully aims at Medusa’s head and bellows out his own request and motivation, “Drop the goddamn gun or I swear to God I’ll shoot!” Medusa jumps, clearly startled, and begins to turn herself to the unexpected counter-offer. She absentmindedly keeps the gun aloft as she does so, and doesn’t have time to realise her mistake. In no more than a few seconds, two loud pops break the tension, and Medusa’s face receives two new holes. She crumples to the ground, her hair now clearly snake-free. The veritable Perseus rockets himself over to the body to secure the wretch’s weapon, but freezes after picking it up. A small but significant detail, one unknowable to anyone not brandishing it, jumps out at him: her weapon lacked the heft of an actual M1911. No, he realises, this was just an airsoft gun, the barrel tip painted to complete the illusion of fatal danger. Several more details come to his attention: the half-rotted left foot and its assault on the nose; the dirt and grime of the street which covers her body like a second layer of skin; the desperation and sadness in her now lifeless eyes. The Perseus recalls the stories he’s heard of homeless people committing crimes, severe legally but petty in reality, looking to go to prison so they can get medical treatment, or a bed, or even just a meal. The realisation hits him like a bullet.