Mittsworth Shouts “Stop”

Sadly, this fictional response to mass shootings is as likely as any other solution…

Gordon Mittsworth went to the park only because his wife and kids insisted. He didn’t particularly want to go. For forty years, Gordon had put up with a lot. “Too much,” according to him. It wasn’t his family’s fault – he freely admitted this. But he didn’t see it as his fault either. Thirty-seven years of unreliable coworkers, incompetent bosses, fair weather friends, self-centered drivers, lying politicians, investments yanked away by recession after recession, and bad news on TV 24/7. It was all he could do to get out of bed and go to work every day, but he soldiered on.

Was it too much to ask to be left alone on a Saturday morning? Oh well, OK then. He went with the family, hoping he would enjoy the outing. At least the weather was good. The park was crowded – a “zoo” in Gordon’s opinion. “Make the best of it, I must,” he thought in Yoda-speak. He tried to remain positive. In a short time though, Gordon started to enjoy being with his family, except for several thousand human distractions.

He heard a loud pop, then another, and people screaming. Everyone ran for their lives or laid down on the grass, but Gordon stood there, frozen, unable to believe there was a man with an AR-15 aiming in his general direction. Another pop. The sound of a bullet whizzing by his left ear. With thirty-seven years of pent-up disappointment, outrage, and frustration in his head, he glared straight at the gunman and shouted, “STOP!” with all his strength. He thought clearly: “Enough. This must end! NOW!”

At once, Gordon, and the rest of the crowd, witnessed something both horrifying and unbelievable. The gunman pointed the AR at his own feet and began firing. His feet disintegrated into a bloody mess, with bits of flesh splashing back over his legs and torso. Yet, he continued to stand there, transfixed in his agony. Before he could hit the ground, he turned the weapon towards his face and fired. His head exploded in a burst of rounds. Pieces of skull and brain littered the well-manicured lawn. Several people nearby vomited on that same lawn. Gordon thought, “Well, I suppose he got what he deserved. Hell-of-a way to go though.”

Fortunately, no one except the shooter died and only one of those pops resulted in a minor injury where it grazed a woman’s arm. News reporters were dumbfounded. “The shooter inexplicably turned his weapon on himself even though he had enough ammunition to kill hundreds. No motive has been found. Social media posts suggested he was there to quote, create a blood-bath, unquote. So far, this public suicide has sent shock waves across the country. We have decided not to air clips of the shooter’s last moments. It is enough to say that the way he shot himself was gruesome in every detail. It’s almost as if he was a puppet being controlled by someone else.”

Gordon’s wife was shaken to the core. On the way home she badgered him, “Why did you just stand there when the rest of us got down? Why did you yell, stop? Were you trying to attract his attention? Do you have a death wish?” And, “Why are you so calm about this?”

The truth was, Gordon Mittsworth didn’t know why he was so calm. All he knew for sure was that he wanted the shooter to stop with every part of his body, soul, and mind. He was glad the guy killed himself rather than innocent people, especially his family. And he had a strange feeling of vindication – a sense of…righteousness. He felt almost as if he had stopped the shooter. But this thought was ridiculous, and he couldn’t share it with anyone.

All Gordon could manage was to apologize to his wife for standing there. “I…just…froze, honey. I yelled, stop, because I really wanted the guy to stop. I’m just glad we’re all OK. Let’s not lose any sleep over this, alright?”

That night, Gordon Mittsworth lost a lot of sleep. He dreamed he caused the shooter to turn on himself. The dream terrified him. Surely, no one can make a person do something like that. Still, he sat up straight in a cold sweat when he saw blood on his hands and pieces of the man’s brain on his shirt. He began to believe he “stopped” a mass shooting. Ridiculous. PTSD? He would call about counseling for his family on Monday morning.

After breakfast, Gordon decided to do a little experiment. He laid a pencil on the table and tried to move it with his mind. Despite all his efforts to concentrate, the pencil remained resolutely still. “Well, that’s that,” Gordon thought, clapping his hands together. “I knew there was no chance that I had anything to do with the death of that man. It was only a dream. What an absurd idea.”

The moment he clapped his hands, his wife, Cheryl, clapped hers. She was in the master bedroom, out of earshot of the breakfast nook where Gordon sat. “I wonder why I did that…” she thought.

The police reviewed available footage of the shooter. He showed up in a beat-up Honda Civic, retrieved his AR-15 from the trunk, casually walked to the top of a small hill, and squeezed off two rounds. Then, he stopped, his eyes locked on someone in the crowd. It was impossible to see who from the vantage point of the security camera.

On the way home from work on Monday, Gordon stopped to get gas. As he was leaving the corner mart, a man in a hoodie pulled out a gun and pointed it at the clerk. “Put all your cash in here,” the man demanded. Gordon turned towards the gunman and said in a level tone, “No. You should leave. Now.” The man lowered his weapon and left. When the police arrested him later, he couldn’t tell them why he walked away, other than to say, “I just felt…pulled by something. I don’t know what.”

The other customers couldn’t believe the would-be robber left, apparently on Gordon’s command. “How did you do that?” was a common refrain. There was nothing imposing or frightening about Gordon Mittsworth. The police questioned him at length and at last decided he had no connection to the man with the gun. The detective on the case concluded, “Well, I guess it’s just one of those things we can’t explain.”

“Cheryl, I know this sounds crazy, but…” Gordon began as he explained his dream and told her about the incident at the gas station. “If I didn’t know better, I’d believe I made the guy in the park and the armed robbery suspect do what they did. But I can’t move things with my mind. See.” He showed her the pencil experiment. The results were the same as before. “Still all of this makes me want to scream.”

Cheryl screamed.

“Wait. Why did you scream?” Gordon asked.

“I felt…almost…compelled to.” Cheryl answered.

“Compelled?”

“Yeah. Like I felt this morning when I clapped my hands for no reason.”

“Exactly when was that?”

“While you were finishing your breakfast.”

Gordon didn’t know what to say. Sometimes it’s better to remain silent than to sound like a crazy person. Were these all just weird coincidences? He hoped so. No man should have the power to control others. It would be too easy to…

Cheryl broke his train of thought, “Why do you ask?”

“Ask what?”

“When I clapped my hands.”

“I was just curious. Maybe the cops interrogating me about my connection to the convenience store robber has me on edge. Maybe I’m thinking about things that are just…impossible.”

“What’s impossible?”

“That I can somehow control the actions of others.”

“That’s ludicrous – comic book stuff.”

“You’re right. Nobody can do that kind of thing, except in Marvel movies. But, if someone could, he or she would need to be careful how they used such a power.”

“That goes without saying. It’s a good thing that kind of power isn’t real,” Cheryl pointed out, half-worried that Gordon was losing his mind.

“Yeah, it’s a good thing,” Gordon replied, trying to reassure her.

For the next several days, Gordon Mittsworth tried to keep his thoughts under control. No snap judgements, no strong emotions, no mental commands. Cheryl and his kids were beginning to feel more normal after their near-death experience. Yet, Gordon felt uneasy. “What if I really have this power and can’t control it?” he thought. “It’s best to stay cool. Think of peaceful things.”

Then the news came on. There was another mass shooting in progress. Two suspects were shooting people at random from the second level of a nearby mall. Both had AR-15 rifles. Gordon shouted at the TV, “This…must…STOP!” Cheryl could have sworn he quickly pointed at the screen and then towards the underside of his jaw as he said this. The shooters placed the barrels of their weapons under their jaws and started firing. Their brains splattered the windows of both Abercrombie and Fitch. And just like that, their rampage was over.

The police concluded the shooters had planned a double suicide. That is, until the detective in charge of the City Park shooting received a video file showing Gordon Mittsworth shouting “Stop!” while pointing at his feet, and then towards his face. His gestures were so subtle they were easy to miss the first time through. After viewing the clip a few times, the detective grumbled, “I think I’ll pay Mr. Mittsworth a visit. On second thought, what good would it do? Such things are impossible.”