sjsprWriting

When a person sees an ant, it must kill it; simple. The ant walks, and so its legs must be ripped from its body. It breathes, so its lungs must be crushed. It feels, so it must not, anymore. It can be mutilated consistently until it only exists in residual bits of smeared body left on the undersides of worn-out human soles that- naturally thinking nothing of their doings- embed those bits into untraceable footsteps.

They stared at the open space between his distended ribs, gritting their teeth as best as they could while their jaws went slack. They thought how easy it was for them to delve into the seams of a bursting surface when it was stretched passed its limits. It was like poking a hole in the plastic that struggles to contain a pack of aluminum cans. It's all a child wants.

“Oh, come on! Let’s let it breathe. Don’t you hear it whaling? Just break them already!” the dark-hooded man said, gripping his eyes with his calloused hands.

Their victim’s face flashed every shade of agony that a human could produce, but some unfathomable tones of No more broke his surface, as well.

When a person kills all of the ants, it must find a substitute; simple. He looks to a fly and slices its wings with the flick of a knife, then throws the remains into a river. He drowns all of the flies and moves on to snakes, wrapping his fingers around the edges of their peaking mouths, and with his experienced hands rips the snake in two, three if it’s not so fortunate.

“Shut the fuck up! How can I hear them if you’re just yelling all the damn time? I want this one to be different.”

“Why? What’s so special about this one?” The dark-hooded man asked as he got closer to their victim, swarming his hands over his protruding ribs, letting him feel every cut and bruise he ever had the pleasure of receiving. “He certainly doesn’t look special.”

The other man, laughingly sickly, coughed up several vapors of blood. He wiped the corrosion on his hands unto the ripped fabric of his jeans. He looked over to his friend, and pulled out a blackened knife.

“What’s so special about him? Why-," the man with blood-stained jeans started as he placed the knife in a particular crease of ribs he fancied, “he just so happens to be the last one.”