In Training
A giant dropped down behind him, could have been from the sky, shoving his elbow up towards his face and he rested two dirty fingers on the bridge of his nose where a perpendicular line was beginning to form and should not be at his tender age of nine.
He never cared to know her name, but he knew she was watching him and he wondered why. Maybe the old gray woman next door would like to smash spiders with a hammer too. Maybe she would also like to rip the wings off dead birds and hang them on the branches like Christmas ornaments in June. Once, when their eyes locked he wanted to ask her why she was watching him, but he decided against it, wearing his silence like a noose. With one dead mother and one sorry drunk Dad, he was alone when the days were long and short to whistle while he worked.
Losing interest in spiders and birds, it was a squirrel this time. He had set a trap made from scraps from the trash, surprised that it worked because he found squirrels to be rather swift and clever. He explained himself in so many words to the squirrel as he took his time slicing off his fur with a tiny pocket knife made sharp enough to do the job on a rock he found while digging the first grave in the backyard where he kept the others; seven brown mice, and three black voles. It wasn't the blood he like best; he expected more, it was the bones, their strength, their permanence, keeping a tidy record for him of his wrong, turning what was once alive into his first draft manifesto below the earth where the unsuspecting adult often walked and sometimes watered, taking false credit for the fertilized springtime crocus.