When I was little I used to like being outside. We used to play in the grass. We would catch grasshoppers and let them go, and crickets. I would pretend I was a cricket, a shiny black one, and you were one, too. The ant lions. I'd catch two. Just tickle a grass stem in its little cone-shaped sand trap and it'd grab it. Then put two of them in a matchbox and we'd watch them wrestle, locking their jaws and twisting like bulls. We'd pretend it was the Coliseum in Rome. We'd chase butterflies. Joshua, you caught a monarch once. It was bright orange with black lace. We'd run and run across the meadows and fields all day long. At night we'd catch lightning bugs when they lit up the fields like a carpet of stars. We'd look at them in our bed under the covers. Those covers that hid so much....

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-- You were with me. You helped me load the gun. Remember? -------------

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-- My mother and father in the bed together, wrestling, moaning. I wet my pajama bottoms.

My father and my sister. It just squirted out! I couldn't help it. Like the Abbot and the Prioress.

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-- And the boys! ....

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-- Someone has removed the coverlet from my bed where I was hiding with you Joshua. Let my hand be cut off. Let not my palms grow hair! Oh please, Lord! Light sweeps in. I am ashamed. No, that is not it. Not that.

The gun I stole from my older brother while he was in school. I put it back. So what? But I shot it several times. Well, a lot of times. I shot it in the air at a bird, a bright red Cardinal. It came tumbling down through the branches, bouncing against the branches, the bare branches, and landed at my feet. Joshua, you were there. It hit my left shoulder on the way down. It burned, like my tears. I knelt down and looked at it. I watched its eye glazing over, its body quiver and go limp. The bright red feathers get dull and rusty. Then nasty with blood. The gun barrel was hot in my hands. It smoked. I smelled the sulpherous odors of death. The sky opened. There was thunder and lightning. Everything got dark. I was terrified. My heart was beating, thumping in my chest. Like now. Oh, my God! I am sorry. I didn't mean to destroy one of your creatures.

Alright, yes, I did. Why else was I pointing my stolen weapon at it? My breath got short. My hands trembled. I buried it. I put it in the ground. Shaking. In a little hole. I couldn't just put that beautiful creature in dirt. It was an angel of light! And I shot it! I took out my white handkerchief. It was clean. I swaddled the feather-light, bright, airy creature in it. I softly sifted the dirt over its limp body. I said prayers over it.

When we went inside my nose was all snotty and dirty. My mother told me to wipe it. She said "Where's your handkerchief?" I stuttered; I tried to lie, but she knew it. She made me confess. Made me confess. I almost told her about you, about you being there, too. Then she said I must tell the priest. I must confess to him. Right away. I did. I did. He said I must do penance. I did. I am. I will. The red knight stands over me. I am defenseless. His spear-point is in my heart. Help me Joshua, old buddy, old pal!

My arm is heavy. And the dog. He dug it up and ate it. He shook it out of the handkerchief and ate it. I saw him. From my window I saw him. The neighbor's black dog. A hound of hell he was! We should have put a stone on the grave, dug it deeper, Joshua. Given it a better funeral. How was I to know? I have bad dreams. I have had bad dreams. I dreamed I was looking up the barrel of that gun at the bird, then I was in the barrel looking up into the black sky. The barrel was hot. It was shaking. I heard the terrible roar in my ears, and I was shooting up in space toward the bird. I was all alone. Joshua, you were not there. I got closer and closer. I was afraid I was going to bang into the heavenly creature, when suddenly I was falling, falling down toward a barren planet. It might have been the moon, I don't know, but it was red, maybe it was Mars, maybe it was the earth, destroyed, and I could see red fires swirling and smoking, and I was headed right into the fires. I was going to be burned alive! And just as I was about to hit, to crash into that fiery ground, I woke up. Oh, my boys! My handkerchief was in my hand. And my hand was wet again, sticky. Was it blood? It would not come off. I would be sweating and shivering all at once. I was terrified, too terrified to call. I had no voice for speech anyway. I had the dream many times. I still get it sometimes. I had never buried anything before then. Oh why have I buried so much since? My arm is heavy. How can I type this? He is positively swaggering. Look at him, Joshua; look at him!

When I went outside I would be afraid to touch the ground. I would be afraid my feet would touch something horrible, or that I would kill some small creature or damage a tree. I got to hate going outside. I sent you, Joshua, as often as I could, in my place. I was always afraid of the long slithery black snake that would come up and wrap around my feet and trip me. Then he would slowly crawl up my body till he got to my head. I could feel his cold, slippery skin. Then he would open his mouth and slowly begin to swallow me. Head first, and I would go down inside him and be slowly dissolved by his bubbling stomach acids. I think this must have been another bad dream I had, but I only remembered it in the daytime when I was going to go outside. I haven't been outside in years. They bring me everything here, and you help me. Some times I even am afraid of these plants. I wonder if they are going to get me. But they need me, boys. I water them. I control them. They know that. ... Wait, he wants to speak again.