by Isamu N.
Mikey wiped a little snot off of his upper lip as the harsh early-winter wind whipped past his greasy hair. Leaves left over from the previous fall fluttered around his dirty sneakers like anemic bu*terflies. He crushed one under the sole of his foot. “Mikey! Mikey!” Zack came barreling down the neighborhood road flailing his arms around like a victim of paranoid schizophrenia, in his hand he carried a rusty hammer that looked gargantuan when held in the grip of his five-year-old hand. “Mikey! Mikey! I got one!” Zack gasped with anticipation. “Oh really? Where is it?” Mikey barked defiantly. “I hid it in the woods so nobody in the whole wide world could steal it, go get yourself a tool and follow me!” Zack held his hands on his knees and breathed heavily, his tiny lungs not yet acclimated to this level of exhaustion. “Alright fine but you better have one” Mikey spat as he walked back home to get a tool.
Mikey carefully and methodically opened the door to his house, but sure enough his father was already asleep. Mikey crept up to his unconscious patriarch, who was still clutching the bottle of Jack Daniel's, Mikey gingerly removed the bottle from his father's hand and gulped down the residue. After smacking his lips and setting the bottled down, Mikey tentatively maneuvered his tiny fingers and pulled out his father's keys from his jean pocket, Mikey clipped off the shed key from the key ring and gently popped the rest of the keys back into the pocket.
Mikey snuck back out of the house and bounded toward the tool shed. He popped off the padlock, and with a considerable amount of effort, pried open the creaky and warped wooden doors. Small drips of sunlight trickled down the walls from spaces in between the wooden boards. Mikey sat on the current situation, but ultimately settled on taking the hammer. Mikey bounded out the shed to catch up to Zack, leaving the shed doors wide open. “What took you so long?” yelled Zack. “I didn't take long at all!” retorted Mikey. After a back and forth of fifteen minutes or so, the two forgot what they were arguing about and headed for the woods, on the way they pa**ed old homeless man Bob on the street corner, the two children made sure to say “hi” and then proceeded to have a quick spit on him. Old homeless man Bob paid it no mind; he was too absorbed in his own mumbling. “It ain't right what they done to us, I served this country for nine whole years, I was a sergeant, they can't do this to me!” etc., etc. ad infinitum.
When they finally reached the edge of the forest, the children began to weave through the trees and bound off the rocks over the streams until finally Zack stopped and puffed, “I left it under these leaves, since I got it, it's my turn first”. Zack bent down on his knees and swept away all the amber-colored leaves revealing a silky white dove, only blemished by a slight bend in its right wing where a tiny splotch of blood could be seen. Without a second thought, Zack brought his hammer down onto the head of the dove, the bones cracked like twigs underneath a giant's sole. Mickey then raised his hammer and swung it down with great force smashing through its chest. Then Zack, with monumental effort, slammed his hammer into its wing, completely dismantling the flight mechanism. Then Mikey, then Zack, then Mikey, then Zack. They continuously hammered the dove in almost a mechanical fashion. It was as if they were possessed, spurred on by some inconceivable, otherworldly force. They smashed and smashed until finally the sun began to dip beneath the horizon and the sky blushed a bright red. The dove was reduced to nothing but a bloody pulp of flesh and bones, the organs where in such a state they where barely recognizable, not a single feather was left un-soaked in deep-crimson blood. The boys admired their handy work, and then ran off home so as not to be late for dinner.