I Killed Magnus

Fiction

By Casey Richards-Bradt

People say people who kill an animal and like it as kids will grow up to be serial killers. But people also have this strange notion that all dogs are good dogs. Magnus was a bad dog. Magnus scratched, bit, grabbed and humped. Magnus turned a whole generation of dog lovers—my brother, sisters, and I—into a family of people who don’t understand why people cared if dogs lived or died.

My dad was a long haul trucker for Amazon. He would leave for the first three weeks of the month and visit us the last. The winter I turned fourteen, Dad came home with a Dunkin Munchkins box poked full of holes. Mom and Dad fought in the doorway. He didn’t want to tell her what it was. Just Get Him Inside, Dammit, Woman, he said, and that was that. It was the smallest puppy we had ever seen. Dad told us he had found Magnus alone howling on the side of a straight road in Iowa. He nursed him on coffee creamer because he couldn’t have food yet, he was so small. Abandoned By His Mom, Mom said absent-mindedly, nursing Seraphina under a blanket. Jerome and Colette started crying—Jerome because the puppy was so small, Colette because Jerome was crying. Dad patted both kids on the back as though he could burp the tears out of them. All the while I stood next to Mom, watching Seraphina’s head bob under the blanket, wondering if Dad would please take the dog with him when he left.

Mom and Dad always said God wants us to multiply. Share in his creation. Dominion over his creatures. This, of course, included Magnus. My father loved him, and so he deserved love. When Mom started calling me a young woman instead of by my name something changed. It seemed the grace of this multiplication was starting to wear out. First, Jerome was my partner in this world. But then Colette was more akin to a training daughter than a sibling. And during the first year of Charlene’s life, I practically became Seraphina’s guardian. I was sharing in my Mom’s creation, not God’s. When Magnus came along, my patience was already spindling.

Magnus grew into his name fast from all that cow cream. Mom couldn’t be around him after she was six months along with Charlene. Her ankles were swollen and he would nibble them plum-bruised. His favorite foods were human epidermis, couch stuffing, and crunchy Jif, in that order, but he chewed up Jerome’s iPad and ate all our sanitary pads one time, too. Pulling his leash was akin to waterskiing—a complete arm workout. If we left him outside alone he would bite through his leash and devastate the garden. If he wasn’t entertained, he bayed like a seventy-pound baby. He barked whenever he saw someone on the sidewalk wearing his favorite food, so a few days into the summer Mom taped up the windows. That’s what Mom did: if you cried, something was taken away. When he didn’t have a constant distraction like the sidewalk, Magnus just barked more, always when I was doing something important like checking Jerome wasn’t watching the news, packing Colette’s lunch, or feeding Seraphina, and in turn mom would bark at me from bed to let the dog out.

Letting Magnus out wasn’t easy. He was smarter than any of us understood. The worst dogs are the smartest dogs. If something worked to calm him down for five minutes, it would never work again. He saw it as tricking him. Magnus knew letting him out meant we needed space from him. Magnus couldn’t be apart from us. Even if he barked to get you to stay in the backyard with him, Magnus would know you didn’t want to be around him, which he considered being apart from him. If you hated Magnus’ barking, Magnus would bark. He barked at anything that wasn’t a danger to him. An elderly couple, fifty feet from the fence. Magnus: sitting, screaming, wagging, grinning. Because there was a fence shielding him from knowing the unknown.

One time Magnus knocked over the high chair with Seraphina in it—on purpose, I swear. I didn’t even notice Jerome around the table but he somehow caught the chair before it hit the floor. Seraphina didn’t even blink, but I’ll never forget the way Mom said God bless you, Jerome, and how she berated me for not saving Seraphina instead when You Were Sitting Right Next To Her, Rosary.

Jerome was Mom’s second favorite. We discussed it, even back then. Mom’s first favorite was Dominic, the name for her unborn son or daughter in heaven who sat with us at dinner every night from the urn centerpiece on the dining room table. Mom prayed for Dominic’s soul every morning, afternoon, and night. One time Jerome got slapped when he said Mom prayed as much as the Muslims, something he read in one of his books that she wasn’t supposed to overhear. If Mom was alone at the table with her head in her hands, we couldn’t speak to her. Dominic was supposed to be born a year after Colette. Sometimes I think Colette was Mom’s least favorite because she reminded her of those years. Colette was also a loud-mouth, an eight-year-old who inherited Mom’s holler, a tone of voice Mom was only supposed to have. It was my job to put a hand over her mouth when she yelled, though I knew she would bite me in retaliation, unless Mama was in a mood to hurt me and then she would say Too Harsh. She’s Only Eight, Rosary, if I tried to help. I would have bitten me, too.

When Mom reached six months with Charlene, which was about six months with Magnus, she declined into a three-month fatigue like no other. At this point, I was practically Mom’s midwife, having witnessed the birth of my baby brother at three. It’s my first memory. I had been scared of my mother dying then, and that summer I felt that fear for the second time. I had grown accustomed to Mom’s pregnancies like the changing of the seasons. But Charlene was different. Like I said, I had evidence the grace in Mom’s uterus was shedding with every birth. I could feel it leaking out from me, too.

Magnus liked to keep us hostage. If someone tried to leave the house, he would block the door and bark unless someone threw him a reward. He just doesn’t know his family is coming back, Jerome always said. It was hard for me to see Magnus as family when he was so difficult. His family is never coming back, I said once in anger. His real family were a group of stray mutts, probably dead in Iowa. Usually either Mom or I would slip out to the store or wherever we needed to go while the other stayed behind. Mom had to leash Magnus when we left for school. Eight in the morning: the sound of a dog being tortured. If Jerome and I were going for a walk to talk, Magnus would hold us back for twenty minutes. Just take him, Mom would yell. He could always use a walk. The only time we left the house at the same time was for Sunday Mass. Then, Jerome would distract Magnus with a peanut butter-filled tug toy while everyone shuffled out the door except for me. Usually Magnus would be so distracted by the peanut butter that Jerome could sprint outside without me catching the dog’s face in the door. We could hear him barking while we drove out of the neighborhood. We had no way of knowing if he ever stopped. He was barking when we left and barking when we came back. I could picture him barking for an hour straight without tiring. Sometimes I thought I heard him at Church. 

His bark didn’t haunt my dreams after I killed him. My cortisol levels were probably lower than most people in charge of four kids. I slept like a baby, as they say. You would, too, I think. Picture this:

It’s a Sunday morning, the one time of the week where you have to be in the car with your mom and siblings at the same time. You hugged your father goodbye for the eighth time this year a few days ago. No matter how many times he leaves, you don’t get used to it. Your stomach churns for days thinking how far away he must be from you and the day-to-day. You’re tired of the free time of summer. The bug-sticking sweat and sunburn. August Sundays are twelve hours too long. You showered last night instead of this morning, not accounting for the hot flash you’d wake up with, so you feel itchy in your blue dress. You told your mom repeatedly you didn’t want a new Sunday dress this year, but this morning the band is poking into your stomach, forcing you to suck in. You look like a haybale. Last summer was so much better, you think, when there were only six of you. Your mom is nearing nine months and could use a wheelchair. At breakfast, you thought about how you have to drive your mom to Mass again. This is the fourth week in a row; you are fourteen and license-less. So many things scare you and the voice in your head is yelling all the time. You are going to have a misdemeanor on your record freshman year of high school because your mom will make you, you think. But before that, there is the whole rigamarole of racing Magnus out the door. Some Sundays are unlucky. Some days just push people. You watch as Jerome sneaks around the corner toward the side door. You know Magnus can smell all tricks; his nose just works better on some days. He appears with his teeth at Jerome’s ankles before you can register it. Takes a nibble. You have to kick him away from the door to let Jerome out. Then it’s just you, stuck inside while everyone is waiting for you. The dog guards you like a basketball player, a shit eating grin plastered on his shit smelling mouth. You realize he controls you. 

He follows you around the house for five minutes while you try to think of a good distraction. If you stop walking, he’ll grab your arm and hump you. You finally open the fridge and take out an almost empty jar of peanut butter. You throw it as hard as you can into the hallway and run for your life. He thinks it’s a game. That, or he’s scared out of his mind. He sees you running away from him and makes it to the door just as you slam it in his face. 

Your mom is impatient. She huffs, but you know she’s just mad at the situation, not you. She has not given herself time to cry this cycle. The cycle is what you call Dad coming and going. She has an idea of how Father Brian looks at your family differently when you are five minutes late every Sunday, but you think Father Brian looks at everybody the same. 

It has become a routine for you, thinking of Magnus during Mass. There is no way to know what he is doing when you are gone. You can check the baby monitors when you get back, but he moves like a ghost past the grainy cameras placed in the living room and the nursery. A corner of a tail there; a hairy eyeball there. You are sure he is barking every time you think of him. You know a dog’s scent trail stretches far. Out of town, he smells the change in your blood, your fear spiking like frying oil. The priest probably likes your family fine. Your neighbors are a whole other issue. You are always scared to go home.

You are tired. You haven’t started drinking coffee yet, and Magnus kept you up in the night with a three a.m. barking session. A deer in the yard or a passing car blocking the moon. It doesn’t matter as long as he is barred from knowing it fully. He thinks you will sic him, kill the thing that scares him, if he yells hard enough. 

When Seraphina starts crying during the homily, you volunteer to take her to the back and bounce her. You hate yourself for doing this—volunteering for your mother’s job the one time she isn’t asking you for help—but being alone with Seraphina feels calming even as she bawls. You secretly hope she cries for the rest of Mass. You think about how couples get dogs when they’re not ready to have a baby when babies are easier. They are predictable. If they are crying, they are pooping, hungry, or tired. They learn to speak within a year or two. A dog like Magnus can cry for a thousand different reasons, reasons you just can’t know about. Your hormones do something to soften Seraphina’s crying, even when it turns sharp and pitchy. No love dims the audial pinch of the puppy’s tortured screams. 

You don’t understand why your mother can’t just admit the dog is bad for everyone. Many times, as an angry teenager, you’d relay your puppy hatred to the other members of your family and your mother would gasp in shock and shake her head. I can’t believe a daughter of mine could say something so demonic about her brother’s dog, she’d say. Your mother calls Magnus your brother and sisters’ dog or your father’s dog. She never calls him her dog or even your dog. 

Your mother is talking to the priest after Mass, holding Seraphina while you keep Colette and Jerome from running in the parking lot. She taps you on the back and reminds you, or perhaps tells you for the first time, that your family and you will be attending the Church potluck in the park before going home. You’re relieved to be away from home, but you also know Magnus isn’t used to being left alone for more than an hour at a time. You are scared to go back home; you are scared to be away from home. You know he charges off of alone time, building chaotic energy. The more alone time you claim, the more he’s left alone, the more destructive energy he’ll unleash on you. Time away from the dog is a luxury you can’t help but question. You just hope you can avoid questions from adults. You want to play tag with your little siblings; snag a second hamburger when no one is watching. 

Your mom wants to grab a few lawn chairs from home before you go to the park with the other members of the congregation. You tap her on the shoulder. You think that’s a bad idea, and she seems to be in agreement with you. Neither of you want to go back to Magnus before you’re ready. You’re surprised she doesn’t ask you to drive back to get her a chair. At the park, you ask a woman you’ve seen your mom talk to if you can borrow her folding chair. When you bring the chair over to your mother, she’s full of rage. I didn’t ask for charity, she says, gritting her teeth. 

You’re kicking the soccer ball to a group of elementary school kids. You’re the barrier between the children and their parents, so for once, they don’t have to talk to each other. The kids want to play a real game with teams. The boys take Jerome as their captain and the girls take you as theirs. Your brother is eleven but already has the self-assurance and clarity of a man twice his age. Or three times. You share the feeling of responsibility with a smirk as the little kids jump at your legs, waiting to be entertained. You score the first goal, a pretty easy feat when everyone is younger than you, but all the kids cheer for you, and a universal truth blooms in your mind that you can’t help but repeat to yourself. Even if you start out having a bad morning—even if you have a bad twelve hours—the rest of the day can always get better. 

The kids don’t even notice when Jerome and you separate from the group. What a luxury it is, you think. Their brains entertain themselves after they’re up and running. You think of Magnus: how impossible he is, and how far from personhood. You can’t imagine being so reliant on someone that you couldn’t live without them. You can’t imagine screaming until the person who owns you tells you how to fix the fear in your head. You would find a way out.

“I can’t stop thinking about Magnus,” Jerome says.

“I was thinking the same thing,” you say, unsurprised.

“He’s not doing good right now,” he says.

“You don’t know that,” you say.

He gives you a knowing look.

“We haven’t gone to one of these picnics since last summer,” he says. “He doesn’t know if his family is dead.”

“I threw him a peanut butter jar so I could leave,” you admit. “So if there’s plastic all over your bedroom floor, it’s my fault.” 

“You mean his fault,” he says. 

“Everything is technically his fault. But we can’t blame it on him.”

Your brother puts his hand over his eyes and squints as the boys make their third goal. He only looks back at you when he realizes they’re trying to call him over. 

“Are you talking about Magnus or Dad?” he says.

“Magnus, obviously,” you say, but the question makes you nauseous, your stomach shaking away introspective sacrilege. It seems God is unimpressed with your silence or the words you’ve chosen, and the sky opens up and pours rain.

You lock eyes with Mom. She yells something to you, a command, but you can’t hear. Colette has slipped in the grass and is crying. The feeling is gone in an instant. Something that works for five minutes doesn’t work five minutes later.

You pick Colette up and swing her legs over your shoulders so you can massage her knee with your right hand. You can tell the difference between a hurt cry and a cry for attention. Usually Colette’s cries are like a one-woman flash mob. You call her Diva. The nickname always works to calm her down. Her light-up sneakers smear dirt on your shirt and you smile. Dirt makes you think of camping with your Dad, back when it was just you and Jerome. 

The parents are more upset about the rain than the kids. The moms made hot food that is threatening to fill with rainwater, and the dads are struggling to unfold the strollers. Let’s reconvene at our home, your mother is saying to the group of five or six couples. She does not usually do things like this, you think. Spontaneously inviting people over. Here she is, handing out her address in the group chat. You want to go along with ignoring the problem. Part of you thinks she is brave for wanting to live her life without permission from the dog, a feat that has proven impossible. Keep the chair, the chair woman is saying to your Mom. A back-and-forth ensues. With each pitchy twinge of politeness from her voice, your mother looks more and more like a microwaved tomato.

In the car, Colette whines as she tries to rip her dress from her neck like a redhead Hulk. 

“Do you want me to help you change when we get home?” you say. But your mother reminds you that When Church People Are Over, We’re Still At Church. You stare blankly and accept this new information. The logic can’t be argued with, but neither can the anxiety in your body. You don’t know when you’ll be allowed to turn this itch off. You roll up the minivan windows and crank the AC. You try to rip at your dress, too; from the back, where your fists are out of Mom’s sight.

“Mom,” you say. “Can I ask how this is going to work?”

“I was thinking I could go in first to let Magnus out. Then I’d give you the signal to let everyone in.”

“In the rain?”

“He’ll do perfectly fine in the rain,” she says. “It’ll do him some good.”

But you know when your Mom is wrong about something. Or when something is too good to be true. You imagine someone reporting your Mom for animal abuse, or the whole neighborhood calling in a noise complaint. Because there is no data supporting Magnus’ ability to be left alone. You think about how long your Mom can chit-chat for and the unknown of how long you’ll be forced to wear your hay bale dress. The strap will snap if you take a deep breath. You picture Magnus barking at each drop of rain, his fur coat unshakable. Everyone would hear him.

“Let me deal with it, Mom,” you say. You both know the baby will wake up when the car stops. Seraphina is obviously more important than Magnus. The assigned responsibilities are more obvious. The children are your mother’s; the burden of dealing with the dog obviously falls to you. Except for the many times where it may take a village.

“Thank you, Rosary. It’s not like that dog is mine,” she says.

The side of your dress rips audibly. You’re sewing that up after Magnus, you know, she says. The car blows hot air at you.

When you get back home you run up to the porch without another word. Your family waits in the car. You think about how your mom’s chaotic energy is building, too, but you can’t stomach the word sorry. You slip in the door, almost catching your arm, but Magnus jumps at it instead and starts humping you. Down, you yell, and he crouches before leaping up at you again. Leash, you yell, and he barks so loud your ears ring. He bears an anxious grin you want to slap. 

At least the house is quiet and dry. Dominic is on the table, soothingly dead. It’ll be over soon, you think. All you have to do is leash him and clip him into the lead. Maybe put on some music to drown out the barking. You do just that. He fires off a set of rapid barks at you when you shut the door. The closed up house does nothing to deafen the noise. Magnus bats at your ears.

You give a thumbs up to your mother and your siblings file into the house. Two of your mom’s friends are parking their minivans on the street. Soon your home is bustling with little kids. 

“I just wish it wasn’t raining for the kids,” one of the moms says, gesturing to the room. “But I guess we wouldn’t have to be here, then.” The woman cackles. Your mom radiates a sour energy. Everyone’s tongue is dry. It is barely eleven and it looks to be five o’clock. Magnus is barking past the rain, but he isn’t louder than the screaming children. Your mother asks you to set out some snacks. You’re hungry again but the swiftness of her command on your neck is making you want to starve, like the food has been poisoned. You start to cut up some cheese. A little girl with cheese breath tugs on your dress, asking if she can see the basement. No, you say, harsher than you’d like. She slinks off. Sometimes you dream that humans bark when they don't get what they want from you, too, and you’re surprised when you get away with not being barked at by people in real life. You can hear Magnus so much clearer from the kitchen. The window above the sink is so thin you could punch your head through it. When the cheese and cracker plate is full you realize you can hear Magnus because the rain is slowing. You’re mad your mom invited all these people over for a passing shower. You itch your dress violently. Magnus barks.

“Mommy, Rosary’s dress is ripping,” the cheese-smelling girl says, pointing to you. You’re carrying a plate of food to the coffee table and instinctively grab your side with one arm. Good job, Sylvia, your mother says to the girl. She asks you to go fix it. 

The sewing kit is in your mother’s bedroom on her dresser. There is no reason for you to do this now. It’s just a small tear under your ribcage. Your mom mends your siblings’ garments all the time. She tells you to do it because you can’t say no to her in front of her friends. You snarl at the thought of the old women in your living room cooing over how obedient you are. What a fine young woman you’re growing up to be, knowing how to sew! You want to puke into your hands and rub it into the walls. 

You can hear Jerome asking your mother if he can take the kids outside. They’re begging to resume the soccer game. Your mom is distracted, talking about you. She’s asking what stores her friends would recommend to buy you a new dress. She either refers to you as a big girl or a bigger girl. Affordable dresses for a big girl; affordable dresses for a bigger girl. The two quotes, equally possible, rattle around your body like stones. You finish the stitch and sit down on the bed. You look down; something slimy is on your foot. You’ve stepped in half of a torn apart peanut butter jar. Something about this new predicament calms you. A lesser problem to solve. You rub the peanut butter into the carpet and throw out the jar. 

You come out of the room with your arms crossed. Your mom is telling you the kids want to go out. The group of parents smile at you blankly. No shit, you want to say. Start fucking barking at me already, you want to say.

“So…help me with Magnus?” your mom says condescendingly. 

You ask what you should do with him. He can’t be inside while everyone is inside, and he can’t be outside while everyone is outside. You want to just take him on a walk away from the crowd, but you don’t want to be seen by the other kids in the neighborhood until you’ve had a shower. He is barking because there are strangers he can smell but not see in his home. You see your mother’s eyes: she is begging you to not embarrass her in front of her guests. She is scared. The cheese plate is untouched. 

“I’ll just take him around to the front door,” you say. You would slap yourself if you could, the tone of your voice.

When Magnus is on the leash again he pulls you to the ground. The cheese breath girl is on her tip-toes, watching you above the painter’s tape on the windows. Your knees are caked in dirt. You feel like bugs are crawling all over you. Magnus runs to the fence to bark at a squirrel, barking at you to lower the fence. You dread walking him past the gate, the feeling of your arms being torn from their sockets, but you want to do it before your mom comes outside. You don’t want to have the conversation about how you’ve ruined your appearance again while everyone watches. You grab Magnus and look up in fear when the door opens. It’s just Jerome. Relief washes over you. 

“I want to stay inside with you,” he says. “Did mom say it’s okay?”

“As long as the kids don’t need helping.”

“Don’t they?”

“No. You do.”

You stare at him, scowling. You feel pathetic. “I don’t want help,” you say. “Just leave me alone.”

You regret it as soon as you see your little brother’s face. He shuts the door before you can say anything else. Your anger doubles after your misfire. The leash is an arrow to the focal point of your vision, the part of daily life you most disdain, and you somehow missed the target of your hatred, telling your brother to piss off instead. Your anger triples. You wanted a hug from him.

You wait in front of the porch, stepping on Magnus’ leash. He is barking at the group of strangers. He can hear them funneling outside, but still can’t see them in a cruel twist of fate. He pulls his muscular body into the air, screaming, trying to hang himself. He wants to rip apart the beating heart of the world. The variety is too overwhelming. A mailman passes by your house. In the backyard, a child squeals. You almost lose your balance. Then, Magnus swings around and bites you. 

It is your ankle, punctured like a chicken thigh. Barely more than a play bite, but enough to sting and draw blood. You are surprised your reaction is to gasp instead of scream. You do not know if you gasped because this has not happened before or because you are in public. But then again, you are not very surprised. This whole day had been practically set up to make Magnus bite. You tie him to the banister and sit down to stare at your leg. Everything fades away except for the snapshot of the blood and the steadiness of your breath. You are mad at the dirt on your knees. You grit your teeth. 

In the backyard, your mother is telling a story about your sibling who was never born. It is a story you have heard six or seven times, though it feels like a thousand. Two days before Dominic went to heaven, no longer a fetus the size of an apple, you told your mom about a dream you had where Dominic was going to be a boy. You told her you dreamt a bird brought a baby boy to the front porch. You had just learned about storks delivering babies, but in the dream, the bird was a human-sized pigeon. Your mom swears what you really saw was an angel. That you were the messenger of death. She is telling the story so sweetly. When she first told you what you had done when you were seven, she was not so sweet. The women are in awe. How are they not afraid of what your mother has said? It is a ghost story. It is like your mother is pouring more dirt on your legs, caking it into your kneecaps. She never talks in ‘I’ statements: only in Rosary or Jerome or Colette statements, et cetera, like there is nothing new to say about herself. You need to do something or else you are going to grind your teeth to their spines. Magnus’ barks are like needles. He is always grinning while he hurts you. You are not worried about remorse. You are only worried that what you are about to do might make too much noise.

Your fist swings back—all your weight in one fist, and you feel like a superhero—and collides with the side of the animal’s skull. Then he is limp and leaking from a small concave wound. It is enough to make for a quick death. For the first time in a year, you are not afraid.

Your knuckles feel good. You are relieved. But you are paranoid that someone has seen what you have done. You drag the body up the stairs and into the house. You are disassociated. You are in a dark comedy movie. For the first time you think, at least the windows are taped up. 

You drag Magnus through the living room and set him beside the kitchen table. He looks peaceful and taxidermied. You smile at him. You’re thinking of the way you want your story to go. What would make sense to your mother as to why you’ve killed the dog. You know good and well you could have stuffed him in your closet, told your mom he ran away, and waited until night to take him to the woods and bury him. But you are not a very good liar, and you don’t put yourself in situations where you’ll be berated on purpose. You already know what your mom would say if the dog ran away. That you did it on purpose. That your father will be devastated. All that hard work he does just to come home and find his dog gone. The wailing she would do. And you are done with wailing. No: you are going to tell your mother that Magnus did something so bad he had no choice but to die. You check to make sure no one can see you through the windows. You can hear faint laughter. You paw like a kitten at the urn and it shatters on the floor. 

You cringe. Your heart is beating out of your chest. You are scared to scream for your mother. 

And then you are crying. You were going to fake the cry, but it comes out real and easy. Your mom is rushing in the door. Jerome and Colette are behind her. OUT, she roars at them. Her face is a double exposure of anger and shock. She cannot put together words. You are doing better than she can.

“He bit my leg,” you scream-cry, “and he knocked over Dominic, and he was going to bite me again.” You grab for your mother and she squeezes you tight, and you feel the warm spark of being under her wing for what has been years. Right now, she is just as protective over you as when you were safe in her womb.

Your mother wipes your nose on her chest. She tries to soothe you. She keeps glancing over at Magnus. You realize she is not sad he is dead. Because Dominic is smashed on the floor, she understands. You are not sad that either of them are dead. Even if you are a messenger of death, even if you did cause Dominic’s death just by dreaming, you do not regret these things. Still you say you are sorry. Your mother doesn’t acknowledge your wound. She just keeps you in a tight hug, her expression changing as her eyes move from Dominic to Magnus and back again. 

How would you feel in your mother’s arms? Squeezed into the reminder that love—pure, enduring love—can still be found in cracks and corners? How would you feel if you had not experienced it in a long, long time? How would you feel if all of the anger nodes making up the source of your anger had been replaced with grace? Equal parts grace for him and for me. I felt pure peace undulating from my body. The peace that came from procuring instant change is a feeling that has never really gone away. Part of it came from the return to my mother’s arms; to childhood. But most of it definitely came from the moment I decided I was going to swing my fist. Not when I killed Magnus, but right before. Only when I realized I could get away with it was that stored peace released like potential energy.

---

Casey Richards-Bradt is a fiction writer and student from Vermont. You can find their other work in The Piker Press, DUMBO Press, and Jupiter's Eye Magazine.