Typically, I would be in the woods, secluded, breathing its crisp air, listening to the muted crunch of snow giving way beneath my feet. Or, I could also be climbing the hill nearby. My thighs burning and me puffing as I struggle for air, trying to best my previous ascent time. Yes, a numbing distraction, that would be my typical response. But one can only go so far in detaching from conscious. The memory haunted me.
“It’s okay, it didn’t hurt!”, he pleaded in his little voice. “I won’t cry and I won’t tell mom! Just let me stay!” I despised him, the older boys always picked on him and got me into fights; fights I rarely won. To add, it was he who told on me about the neighbor’s broken window. That had cost me the BB gun I had begged father so long for.
It’s never easy to refuse your kin in that state, especially when he resisted his usual tears.
I did it anyway, I poked him again. “I won’t tell mom you poked me but let me stay!” Little did I know, the syringe I found and poked him with was diseased.