Analysis of Robin Storey's short story 'The Pistol'

The short story “The Pistol” was written in 2009 by Robin Storey. The story is about a man named Neil Cresswell, who tries to get into other people’s thoughts. While he’s on the train on his way to work, sitting with his hand on the pistol in his pocket, roams the first thought of shooting his head. Just a fantasy, a warm-up for tonight. On the grey winter morning, Neil stops in front of a building, his workplace. Neil works on Hodgson and Levitt, Chartered Accountants. Neil doesn’t like Vivienne Greene, she is one of the partners of the company, she reminds him of her one wife, Jocelyn, just twenty years older. Neil sits and eats his lunch, and a young couple sits beside him, then the thought of shooting roams his head again. Then at the New Year’s Eve cocktail party on June 30. the thought roams his head for the fourth time, the perfect night to get rid of them all for ones. During Bob Cotton’s speech, that’s where he’ll do it. But what else that his lovely wife, Jocelyn should ruin his life’s biggest chance. A phone call from her mother brings them the terrible news that their son has broken his leg. When they get home from the hospital, Jocelyn confronts Neil that he has behaved strangely, soon after she asks what he has in his pocket, and when she looks in it, it is completely empty.