POPPOW! Off go the blasts like a mad symphony of firecrackers: POW! POPPOW! POWPOWPOW! The armoire glass cracks, the front window and the mirror shatter, the shade and draperies flutter from their perch, plaster splatters from the walls, the portrait of her late husband Osyrus leaps into the air and, with the precision of a diver, angles straight to the floor. POWPOW! Within seconds of the first blast Noble hurls herself, unrobed and wigless, prone to the threadbare carpet. POW! A bullet ricochets off the cast-steel hinge of the closet door, scattering over her prostrate form the hundred porcelain shards that were her bedside lamp. POW! A stray bullet shivers the polished surface of her dressing table, dispersing perfumes and powders in every direction. Flush to the floor she lies, her eyelids riveted, fists balled, jaws clenched, as the fusillade plays on, POWWOP!, then out. Silence as she lies, her head one with the handknitted rug, her knotted form rigid as the floor beneath. Am I alive? Am I breathing? Her chest neither rises nor falls, her diaphragm tight as a lead washer, unmoving, her insides empty of all breath. Am I dead? Am I dead? Her insides empty, her body still as bone: I'm dead. No way all of them bullets missed me. I've died and am passing over, so like all the faithful come to the end of the road, I'm pledging this soul to Jesus and waiting for the signs: the blinding Light; the choir of His angels; the burning Bush; the Ancestors draped in the finest silks and jewels, returning to welcome me on over there. But as she lays there, the debris mapping the space around her, nothing happens: there is no blinding Light, there is no choir of Angels, there are no Ancestors calling out to her, no burning Bush or descent of doves or God's voice, in whatever form, nothing. She waits a little longer. Nothing. Then I'm Noble realizes, yanking a quick breath from the powdery murk above her. What happened? Was I shot? Hit? Her body plank-stiff, paralyzed?, either from wounds or from fear she is not sure, but with each gasp of air, she repeats to herself, I must be I must be I must be Before she can reason the extent of this alive, something deep within her rises, swells up, bursts out to the loud silence: Thank you Lord Jesus, lay me near thy cross I'm alive. As each word sputters from her lips, the wind rushes in, whistling its assent. I may be wounded, but I'm not dead, I'm not dead, they did not kill me, praise Jesus-Son-of-God, bullets flying every which way, but I'm not dead, I'm not dead, praise Heavenly Father God of Mercy, I'm not dead. Was I hit? You can't tell right away, her sister Precious had once told her, because of the shock, but then the pain floods you, just floods you, you been waiting and then you start drowning in it, that's when you know you been shot and if it don't come