a work-in-progress snippet

Is it possible to create a novella-length melodramatic work entirely in the present tense? I'm sure it's been done... How readable would it be? That is, can it hold a reader's attention without feeling too awkward to them?

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Green is beginning to stir. His breath is raspy, heavy with effort, wet thanks to a punctured lung.

Gail finds her hands gripping his gun in fingers tight and cold. Her jaw is clenched, teeth grinding. She's overwhelmed by a sense of outrage at his invasion into her space, not just her car, but her space – her tidy world.

Her fingers close on the trigger, and the gun goes off almost effortlessly. She will later convince herself it was an accident. The BANG fills the tiny space to overflowing, and her ears whine an endless E.

The red-haired thug runs up to the car just in time to see his buddy take a point-blank bullet. Red stumbles away, gathers himself up, running off at top speed.

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Also, can you say these words in the present tense:
punctured
clenched
overwhelmed

It's Quiet. Too Quiet.

I have 3 points to make today:

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1) Any minute now, a chilling story out of Amsterdam - MP3 players are proven to cause tongue cancer. It's not true, but that doesn't mean I don't expect to hear it.

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2) I don't like those longer forks. Salad forks I guess they are. They seem pretentious, and me no likee.

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3) Where would I get an engraving machine? And who would teach me to use it? And how am I to afford the raw silver? What if I'm allergic?

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PS: For those of you who remember Snippets of Random Chaos with fondness- I've posted a slew of new stolen fragments. The rest of you can put your head down on your desks for a bit of quiet time.