I. David 

It's 9:17am on Tuesday and Arahaz is certain the man walking toward the DMV has ill intent and a pack full of munitions. 

Arahaz can see the butt of a rifle outlined in the man's oversized backpack. The man is walking erect and straight at the just-opened-for-business DMV. 

Arahaz is standing behind his car, behind the man, in the parking lot, thumbing his keys, and watching the oversized brute march toward the stagnant line of people wrapping around the square, concrete building. 

The man is huge — Arahaz imagines himself jumping on his back and conjures the image of a father-son piggyback, the boy flailing as the father spins and jostles. 

Arahaz scans the parking lot and hopes for help — a sea of cars, but there's no one else nearby. Arahaz pockets his keys and fishes out his cell phone. He unlocks his phone, opens his phone app, and keys in 9-1-1. Before hitting "call," Arahaz steps out from behind his car; he tentatively moves closer along the trunks of parked cars to study the man:

The man is only about 50 meters from the doors now, and he's stopped. 

He's wearing a forest green long-sleeve shirt and matching hat.

The man removes the hat from his head and places it atop the Chevy Tahoe next to him. For a long moment, the man simply fills his lungs. His shorn hair is stubbly at the nape of his neck, flattened off on top.  His wide hands and thick fingers are ringless, Arahaz notices from his now-too-close position.

A deep crease appears between Arahaz's haywire eyebrows. His finger hovers over "call."

The man gathers a last, huge breath and slings the pack down in front of himself, in front of his sand-colored work pants and heavy-duty boots. With deliberate action, the man unzips the pack and removes a set of goggles. 

He wraps the strap around his meaty head and position the goggles over his eyes. On the goggle strap, someone has written in red sharpie "Take America Back."

Arahaz hits "call." The man places the hat back atop his head. 

The police line is ringing. Arahaz is no more than ten meters behind the man, semi-obstructed behind a Honda Accord, when it dawns on him that he's too close and will certainly be heard. 

Then, as the militia man pulls an automatic rifle from his pack and leans it against the Tahoe, Arahaz realizes, also, that the still-not-on-the-line police won't be of any help the people standing in line at the DMV. 

The militia man has pulled two pistols from the pack and set them atop the Tahoe. Blood is pounding at Arahaz's temples.

Faintly, Arahaz hears the operator ask for the "nature" and "location" of his emergency just as he's backpedaling while crouched, trying to keep quiet, and fighting the urge to scream "run!" to the dozens in line. 

Arahaz throws himself to the ground under a Volkswagen Beetle and breathes into the phone: "there's a man shooting at people at the Burlingame DMV." He says it all again, and adds "he's got automatic weapons," before placing the phone gingerly on the asphalt and clambering up to a crouched position. 

Arahaz knows he's the only hope for the people in line. But how to sufficiently warn them?

II. Goliath

Arahaz peers out at the giant, who is pulling tactical gloves over his hands. 

From the side, the man reminds Arahaz of the 90s wrestler, Stone Cold Steve Austin. He's got a trim goatee and hard, blue eyes. His face would be handsome if it weren't etched by hatred.

Arahaz watches the man load each weapon. The man stashes extra magazines of ammunition around a belt holster. He holsters each pistol.

There's almost no time left to do anything heroic. 

Arahaz scans the area around the VW for anything he might use as a weapon—a wrench, a spare tire iron, a screwdriver maybe?—but the only thing available are the rubbly pieces of a parking block. Arahaz picks up a fist-sized pieces of concrete and throws it before he can think about the action. 

From only ten meters, Arahaz misses miserably. The rubble flies wide of the would-be shooter's head by more than two feet and instead crashes into and cracks the passenger mirror of the Tahoe. 

At the sound of the collision, the giant takes a step backward and looks toward the Tahoe's mirror. His eyes scan from the mirror to the ground to the cement fragment just as Arahaz's second and equally errant throw makes contact with the car's rear windshield. The giant's hand instinctively moves to the pistol on his hip as he wheels around to catch a glimpse of the back of Arahaz's head ducking behind a Blazer. 

The pistol, swallowed as it was in the two-pawed grip of the man, and the man are trained onto Arahaz's position; the giant fires.  

The first trio of shots send the line of people scattering and screaming. 

The shots slam into the Blazer and Arahaz's shudders "fuck" before he army crawls toward the next row of vehicles. 

The giant, the militia man, the active shooter holsters the pistol and shoulders the automatic rifle. He swings it toward the DMV. He strafes the side of the building, where the line had just been, and roars in frustration at empty space. 

He charges forward toward the open doors; Arahaz sprints toward the back of the lot. 

The giant is ten paces from the DMV doors when the metal security curtains are pulled shut from the inside. 

He fires at the metallic sheets, but the security guard has already locked the bullet-proof curtains from the inside. 

Still, the din of bullets against the metal sends up choruses of screaming from the people sheltered inside.

III. David vs. Goliath 

The giant roars in frustration. 

He spins on his heels and turns toward where he last saw Arahaz. 

Across the lot, more than 100 meters away, Arahaz has discovered that the chainlink fence at the far end of the lot does not lead to an exit. He's trapped. 

The giant lines up his shot and squeezes the trigger of this automatic rifle. The shots shatter car windows near to him and Arahaz smartly drops to his stomach. The cars between the men obstruct the firing line. 

The giant grins, realizing he's got Arahaz trapped.

He tosses the rifle and begins jogging toward Arahaz.

For his part, Arahaz also realizes he's trapped. 

He scans the ground for any help — again, the best hope he finds is a hunk of cement from a broken parking block. Arahaz palms the grapefruit sized hunk.

Then, quickly, he army crawls, rock in hand, seven cars down the row.

He can hear the jangle of equipment getting closer, off to his right—Arahaz props himself against a bumper and stares at the grey sky, wishing there was beautiful blue before this moment. 

Arahaz exhales slowly, then stands and spins and hurls the rock at the man. 

It's in those moments when we know, absolutely and without a doubt that our goose is cooked, Arahaz would later think, that we truly let it all go and end up doing our best work. 

As the rock left his fingertips, Arahaz knew it was on target. 

He had stood and rocketed the projectile with the three-quarters arm action of a seasoned shortstop—the form, the power, the accuracy, hell, the grace, who knew where it had come from?—but the throw, sending the rock on it's wobbly, backspun vector straight for the big man's temple, was an unquestionable thing of beauty. 

For his part, the big man hadn't counted on Arahaz's army crawling, on his flanking maneuver. And so when Arahaz released the rock, the man's eyes were trained to the spot where Arahaz had been. 

In fact, the giant's last-second perception of the rock, just before it slammed into his head and cracked his skull, caused his head to jerk toward the projectile, increasing the force of the one-in-a-million shot.

To Arahaz, it was the most perfect moment of his life. 

The rock dissolved the giant. His knees went wet and shoulders sank. The pistol clattered to the ground with a bit less sound than the big man's head, which thud-cracked like a wet log under a heavy axe. 

Arahaz marched over to the out-cold monster and kicked away the pistol. 

He stood for a long and glorious moment under the grey skies and soaked in the approaching police sirens.

Before long, the police would come and cart away the terrorist. Before long, news crews would show up to interview Arahaz. 

And before long—the very next week, in fact, at the re-opening of the DMV—a truly miraculous thing happened: Arahaz would renew his driver's license in record time (in only four minutes!) after being ushered to the front of the line at the DMV.

 This post is ad-supported
​