Equal To Or Less Than

Johnny ate paste and failed spelling tests but nobody cared. When he brought home his first F, his father told him, without looking up from cleaning his gun, that numbers were all that mattered. Spelling, he said, was for pussies. Johnny did well in math.

Johnny liked to play alone. When he played with other children, phone calls had to be made. His favorite place was the marsh. It stayed muddy all year and there was no one. Johnny liked the smell, equal parts growth and decay, and he liked birds. He would watch them for hours, herons mostly, standing in the shallows. He liked the way they moved, scanning the water for food. They had purpose. They were precise. They were probably, he thought, good at math.

For his birthday, Johnny got a slingshot. He took it with him to the marsh and watched the birds until the scene became unbalanced: There were 4 where there should only be three.

rock  +  slingshot  -  bird   =   balance

Johnny walked to where it fell. It was dazed but not dead—a purple heron nearly as big as the boy. He stood watching it struggle to stand, then reached down and wrung its neck. Holding the dead bird, he was surprised by the weight of it. He dropped it, knelt down and began to cry. He cried for a long time and then stopped. Johnny carried the bird to dryer ground and with his hands dug a shallow grave. He walked home. That night, as he lay in bed, he could feel the bird's neck, the warmth of it in his hands, the texture of the feathers. Even now, just before sleep he feels it: something in him reaching to balance the twitch of life against the weight of the dead.