Publication : 1995
Setting : a bank
Plot Summary : A man named Anders enters a bank right before closing. He gets into line between two women who increasingly begin to annoy him. When one of the tellers closes her position at the counter, the one woman in front of Anders makes a comment that sets Anders off. They get into a small banter and suddenly everyone goes quiet. This is because two masked, armed men entered the bank and was holding the guard at gunpoint. They begin to tell the tellers to start getting the money into bags and meanwhile the one robber makes a reference of “dead meat” that makes Anders reply with sarcastic comments. The robber hears this, gets angry, and has Anders look at the ceiling. Anders laughs at the bull on the ceiling and as the result, the robber shoots him in the head. The story ends with Anders looking back at events in his life. Not important events that you would assume a person would have, but an event where he was playing baseball as a boy and he hears another boy say “they is”.
Conflict : A conflict in this story would be Man vs. Self. Anders has a personality where he says what comes to mind. In this case, when the robber turns to Anders and gives him the task of being quiet, Anders cannot complete this task and continues to say what comes to mind. He ends up laughing at the painting on the ceiling and can’t control himself. For this he gets killed. In the beginning of the story, when in line for the teller, Anders also gets into a small confrontation with the woman in front of him because he’s unable to keep his thoughts to himself. Another conflict could be Man vs. Man. Anders goes up against the robber and in a way has a match against him. There’s a lot of back and forth banter which ends with him getting shot in the head.