Us Kids and Puppy

It's our Puppy, sister said, but I really think sister meant it was her Puppy, and that I could only play with it sometimes, but not all the time. Our mother told us not to touch Puppy, that Puppy's mother might not take care of Puppy if us kids touched it, because it would smell like us kids and not like Puppy anymore. But I didn't want to touch Puppy anyway, because Puppy was covered in red glop, and Puppy's fur was wet and pink and slimy like a big ball of puppy-glop that fell out of its own mother like when me or sister have to go to the bathroom but can't hold it so we just let it go out our backsides and onto the floor.

Mother told us to come away from Puppy and its brothers and sisters and mother told us kids to go play somewhere and to leave Puppy alone because being born is a long-tired job. I asked mother if being dead is a long-tired job too, but mother just grabbed me and sister's arm and pulled us into the backyard, where me and sister were supposed to have fun but not get into any troublesome activities. I wanted to ask mother what troublesome activities really means, but mother just went inside and closed the door with a bang, and me and sister just stared at each other wishing we could still be looking at Puppy.

Sister told me I shouldn't be talking about being dead in front of mother, and punched me in the arm and I started to cry not because it really hurt but because I wanted mother to come back outside and get sister in trouble. But when mother didn't come out I got bored and started punching sister back in her rib-bones, and she started to yell but then we both started laughing and rolling in the grass and dirt and mud, punching each other's bones and getting stains all over our sunday-clothes. When sister stopped hitting me and I stopped hitting her, us kids just laid in our grassy-mud mess on our backs and stared at the cottony blue sky, just us kids and no mothers and fathers to get in the way and tell us kids that we shouldn't be laying on the ground getting dirty.

I ask sister why mother doesn't like to talk about being dead? and what happens when you die? and sister says she doesn't really know what happens to everybody but us kids would probably be with father if we died, so I said we should try it just to see what happens. But sister is a stupid-scaredy-cat who never wants to do anything I say, because she says she doesn't have to because she's older than me, and older sisters don't have to do anything except beat up their little brothers and make sure they don't do stupid things. I said, if she doesn't want to try it then maybe we should just test it on something else so that maybe we can tell what happens when they die, but she just laid there like a lump of nothing and refused to move her big butt off the mud mess we made.

So I tried to sneak in the house to grab Puppy so us kids could try the experiment on Puppy, but mother caught me by the back of my white-buttony shirt and said, where do you think you're going young man?, and threw me back outside like I was Puppy and she was Puppy's mother trying to keep Puppy in his box with his sister. Sister finally got up and pushed me to the ground and told me that she heard if you stay still for long enough and don't move a muscle you can feel what it's like to be dead. Sister told me if you think for long enough that you're dead your body goes away and you become part of the ground and then you start to dream, but if you're really dead you never wake up and you have to stay in your dreams forever. I asked sister if this was going to be a long-tired trip like being born, but sister didn't answer and just laid next to me and held my hand so us kids could practice lying still like dead people do.

We laid and laid and laid and I started to get cold and the sky started to get dark and I started to think that nothing was going to happen, but then I felt like I couldn't lift my arms or my legs and that I was stuck to the mud on the ground. I tried to turn my head to look at sister but I couldn't look at anything except the stars in the sky, and I felt weird at first but then it started to feel nice when the moss and grass started to cover my body and grow really fast in the light of the moon that shone on my body. I started hearing voices that started to float around and round my head but then I felt sister's hand squeeze my hand and I realized I was sleeping, and I got mad at sister for waking me up because the plan actually worked and I was just about to get to the part where I see father. She said I was stupid and that she didn't feel anything and that I was just dreaming, so I punched her in the side and got up to go find mother to tell her what happened.

But mother was sleeping because I guess she forgot about us kids playing outside and got tired, so I went to look at Puppy instead of waking her up because then she would just yell and put me and sister to bed. So I went to look at Puppy, but when I got to Puppy's box Puppy wasn't moving and I couldn't tell if he was sleeping or dead, so I took him out of his box and brought him outside to ask sister. Sister jumped up when she saw me with Puppy and ran over and was yelling and crying. I asked her what was wrong but she just kept saying over and over that I killed Puppy and ran into the house to find mother to tell her so that I could get in trouble.

I didn't want mother to see me with dead Puppy so I went to the garden and started digging with my hands and fingernails to make a hole to bury Puppy. I put Puppy in the hole and covered him with the dirt pile I made and then pulled out some grass blades and moss to cover the dirt with so that he could start to hear the voices too that I heard when us kids were playing dead. Mother came outside with sister and saw my Puppy-pile and took me by the collar and put me to bed, and then told me and sister that she was giving away Puppy's brothers and sisters tomorrow because us kids couldn't handle responsibility. I wanted to ask mother what responsibility meant but she closed our bedroom door with a bang.

Sister opened the window because it was awful hot in our room, like some kind of box that we were trapped in and kept in by mother, and then went to bed without talking to me. I laid in bed and tried to pretend to be dead again like Puppy, but I woke up when I heard bark sound in the garden outside our window.