A Little Bit More

(Prince, 2009)

I had enough. So I kicked the kid hugging my left leg with a force that threw him across the floor and into the next room. I washed my foot of urine and left. Two days in the country was enough for me, I was on the fence about the whole thing, Uncle Henri is a crazy fool, and smells, and it comes to no wonder why no one visits him from my side of the family.

With children running a muck in the yard I slammed that screen door like there was no screen door, I stepped down the stairs to the drive way, walked right up to my bike and realized I left the keys in the house. I took off my shoes and tied the laces together and left them on the seat of my bike, and ran towards the woods. The children ran after me with fireworks. Smoke and loud ruckus surrounded me, and the forrest soon laid upon my foot step. Darker and darker I went, louder and louder their menace came. I screamed, and they screamed louder. Pop, POP, POP! Schhhhhhhhrrrrrr...POP! I hated every child at the moment, even the one I used to be. I cut the softness of my feet off on stone and pebble, I ran like the rest of them, and I cried and danced like the rest of them. I cursed everything I knew, I cursed with every curse word I knew, I wasn't going to have it. And soon even the children were cursing, cursing with words I never knew existed, words worse than my own, and when I looked towards them speeding through the trees all around me, they were no longer children but foxes, wolves, and eagles, all with red burning eyes and black fur and feathers. I told myself it was the way shadows form in the woods, that they were still human, they were related to me, but fear would raise and it would consume me.

A gun shot fired into the sky, and I could hear nothing following its sound. The beast children had stopped, and when I looked down to my feet and saw that they had stopped too. I saw the urine run down my leg, and wondered nothing. I hadn't a thought in my mind, as if the piper had spoken with his seductive tone and had taken me with the children. It was my time, as I floated back to the house.

That night I smoked blunts with Henri, the kids would dance around the fire, in masks of their favorite animals, and I would grow to know this place for its magic. Every year, on that weekend, I would return, and lose a little bit more, and every year, on that weekend, I would return, and gain a little bit more. A little bit more.