12th over: South Africa 64-2 (chasing 324; Smith 27, de Villiers 0) South Africa have been here so many times before, looking down the barrel of an ignominious early exit.
I hadn't done much prompter work before HQ, staring down the barrel of a camera, which is what I'm doing now, twice a day, live, for 15 uninterrupted minutes.
It's a small Snoopy doll, a touchstone to his childhood love for the cartoon "Peanuts". It is, he says, a memento of the time before he "stared down the barrel of a gun, face to face with a neo-Nazi". At first he thought he would be OK.
He remembers Gonzalez for the natural way he drove balls to the opposite field, letting pitches travel a split-second longer before lashing line drives off the barrel of his bat.
Since this is a Neil LaBute play, it is hardly a shock that this born-again soul remains the same jerk he appears to have been before he saw the light in the barrel of a machine gun.
Showdown (the Heavy's Apoco-Fists, Fists, Holiday Punch, or Saxxy): The Heavy stands still for a few moments, imitates pulling a pistol with his hand, shoots the pistol in the direction that the crosshair was pointing at before the taunt, and then blows the barrel of his imaginary pistol.
It was hands down the scariest minute of my life, and I've looked down the barrel of a shotgun before.
Thinking like, Oh shit, I was supposed to be in school!" Williams had never stared down the barrel of a gun before.
Take Evan Hunter's "The Last Spin," wherein one of those Russian roulette players twirls the barrel of the gun, and before pulling the trigger, sums it all up: "What the hell's the difference?" Noir characters stand alone, outside of civility and outside of society.
Then he gently taps the barrel of the bat against his helmet, twice, before brushing off the barrel with his hand.
