My hands are trembling as I tighten my grip on the weapon. I look down at what I have done and what I am about to do. Do the people outside know what kind of power I have been handed? Do they know how serious a threat I am?
Apparently not, because I still stand here, concealed from any suspicious eyes.
I pull back the curtain, sure that within seconds I will be tackled, relieved of such a powerful tool. But no, I make it all the way across the room and to my target. I pull it out, the first time I have allowed myself to show this thing in public.
You can still change your mind; I try to convince myself. Hide it, no one has to know what you’ve done.
But it’s too late. This was a choice I made on purpose. No matter what may happen after this, I will know that I did what I had to do. This time, knowing I will follow through, I take out the weapon. The woman’s eyes at the desk open wide and stare right at it. I lift it up, no longer hiding it. She seems to be frozen, waiting for me to finish the job.
“You just have to put it in the box sweetheart” she says to me, uncomfortably waiting for me to drop the ballot in.
“Sorry. This is a much bigger moment in my head,” I say to the woman.
But there it goes, gone from my hand and into the box with a check next to a person who could potentially run our country.
Once again, I wonder if they knew how much power I had just held. That ballot was as powerful as a gun, smoking in my hand as the bullets escaped toward the future. I had my gun pointed straight at oppression; at the years I was told one vote could change nothing. But now, my voice on that ballot will be my shot heard round the nation. This will be my assault on Congress with a deadly weapon.
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