James Musgrave

It was my attempt in this story to affix a motive for this disaster. This narrator's motive is a complete and utter fabrication. However, as an author, I have always wondered what may be inside the mind of a person who can plan and execute such carnage. As a result, I used a medical tool to outline the steps during a person's descent into a schizophrenic state of mind. This process, as is the case with most human events, can happen suddenly, or, as in this instance, over many years. I have thus entitled each section of the descent in my narrator's story by the medical terms given at the end of the story in Conrad's Stage Model of Beginning Schizophrenia. I have also used a story framework taken from the Buddhist term "Bardo," which has been used before, most notably by author George Saunders, in his popular and award-winning novel, Lincoln in the Bardo. In my story, however, as you will see, the narrator has no moral conscience, as he has already become medically insane. Of course, since this man never survived, one can only speculate about what was going on inside his mind, and this is my attempt to do just that. As I am a believer of Buddhist and Hindu philosophy, I do not want my reader to misconstrue the fact that the narrator has employed such a philosophy and its terminologies/characters. He is, to use the literary terminology, an "untrustworthy" narrator.Finally, I have purposely left out the actual name of the perpetrator, even though most readers will instantly recognize him. I simply did not want to dignify him with a name. It's as simple as that. I used actual research from his life, and his experiences, and the gun purchase statistics at the end were provided by the FBI. These statistics speak for themselves, and one would hope readers might understand the underlying "problem" of gun control that is an integral part of my narrative.

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