The Stench of My Being
The smell of murder on my fingers.
Crawling, slithering to me, he rested his tiny head on the tip of my foot, his cold wet nose making contact with my little toe. That is when he stopped screaming. His mother watched me from a distance, as he snuck his head up my trouser cuffs to hide himself from the terrors of broad daylight in a town which had long forgotten what life costs. His little brother, not more than a week old, now lifeless, lay on his back on the side of the road, with flies buzzing around the centre of his abdomen; or what used to be his crotch - now pasted across the length of this road. A car, out and about on some pressing business, had run him over, squeezing the life and entrails out of the fragile body which had just begun to learn how to quip and bark in melodies. So fast was the event of death that nobody noticed, so tiny was his body that the car did not lose its balance, did not rise an inch above the ground, did not seem to hit a bump as it flattened the body. There was no scream, there was no breath.
The mother, biting and snapping at flies feasting on her dead child, ran back and forth between the carcass and the underbelly of another car, anticipating in fear another murder. The bitch - she was salivating without pause, licking the gaping wide hole in the body of her child - the hole that the soul was stolen from.
The child at my foot crawled further up until half his body was inside my trouser, resting against my naked leg; the same cold nose now resting against my lower shin. I sat down, brushed my fingers against his tiny skull, and tried putting him to sleep. I could feel the shiver of this tiny body.
After a few minutes, the frantic mother stopped salivating, and was now foaming at her mouth. By now, she stopped rushing back and forth, and started howling; in pain. Her child would not get up; no matter what, would not quip and bark, no matter what, would not yank at her for milk, no matter what. She rushed to me, smelled me, stepped back startled, barked at me, and now growled - at the scum-like smell that my specie carries.
The smell of murder on my fingers.
The smell of meat in my colon.
The smell of dog-food in the back of my car.
How fucking dare you, she blared. How fucking dare you kill us and comfort us. You hypocrite; you bastard of satan.