A Defensive Action

How fortunate that I, correctly versed, knew hand-grenades are passive. At their worst, they maim and kill. But this is interspersed with usefulness: defenders have no thirst for carnage. Since the enemy had first used violence, they had to be dispersed. It fell to me. How often I’d rehearsed in nightmares what came next, how often nursed this killer in my hands. Like Damien Hirst, I knew that I was certain to be cursed by those who only see a shark immersed in urine, not a work of art. Lips pursed, I threw my bomb, and squatted, for I durst not look upon the mayhem, when it burst.