Untitled Short Story. This is not a title. Dammit.

"I don't want to fucking hear it."  It was her go-to line whenever she didn’t feel like talking.  It was usually followed by a quick turn like a pirouette and a brisk walk into the bedroom. 

And the fight was over.  I cut into an apple and started eating.

I have never been confrontational. Not as some part of a clever strategy, I’d smile or laugh when a bully pushed or threw a smart remark my way.  I didn’t blame them for pushing me around.  If I were them, I’d do the same thing, I thought, like a perversion of the ubiquitous Golden Rule.

When I was 13 my best friend and I used to shoot off his pellet gun. It was old and rusted but fired true.  My parents would never have let me have one let alone shoot it around the neighborhood. They were too worried about me and my indiscretions.  It was my favorite part about going to Greg’s house.  His face was positioned all too close together and somewhat bug-like Kafka's Gregor.  He had the unfortunate habit of sucking his teeth as he breathed through his mouth like a trough.  Anyway, we’d take out the pellet gun and shoot cans, mostly, in his backyard and aim impossibly at black birds as they swept by. Out of birds and tired of cans we looked for other prey to satisfy our predatory child-instinct. I grabbed the rifle and lay prone like I’d seen in the movies and took aim at a white rabbit fifty yards away.  I was a lousy shot.  Greg took aim and crouched right next to me and got it with the first pellet. 

We stood over the tiny spasming bunny. Its eyes were wide in terror and confusion like I’d seen people do in the movies. A rich redness pumped out of its neck in beats. He’d hit it square. We just stood over it and watched it for a long time. I hadn’t shot it myself, but I had killed it too.

It was a good green apple.  Not too juicy, because I don’t like juicy apples.  I like a firm meaty apple.  I think about that rabbit all the time.  And my little bunny, pouncing around the bedroom, eyes wide with passion about something. I think about the rabbit and I get some small relief with the knowledge that I can pretty much kill it whenever I need to.