10 Minute Free Write: What Did Someone Kill?

My father killed the muskrat. The muskrat had been cornered by our dog Butchie. Butchie was barking, looking up at us, barking more, smiling at us. The raised shovel above my father's head threatened to fall on Butchie, but fell instead on the muskrat. I had no idea what a muskrat was. It came up from the creek, said my father. It was hiding behind the garbage cans, but it was only hiding. It was not trying to get into the garbage, it never had the chance. What does a muskrat do? Why did this one travel so far from home? What if it was friendly? I thought something so easily cornered and killed must have been friendly really. How afraid it must have felt, cowering in the corner behind the cans. It never stood a chance. My father picked it up by its tail and carried it to the communal burial pit in the back across the creek, the very pit Butchie would be laid to rest in years later. I looked away, averting my eyes from the gore I expected, averting my mind from the nothingness where once a muskrat had lived. I went back inside, sad and afraid, not knowing why the muskrat had to die. I went inside to find Gilligan and his friends waiting for me. The day my father killed the muskrat was the day I saw the depth of coldness in my father, the emptiness that kept him from appreciating the life of a small water-rodent that couldn't have harmed any of us, and wouldn't have stuck around to make mischief of our order. That was a bad day for the muskrat. The last thing he saw was the cold empty eyes of my father, shovel raised and ready for the death blow, killing without a thought for the young in the den, the errand unfinished, the mate left alone.