Killing Softly on the Barefoot Grass

By Jenny

The only things that really interested him anymore were Nerf Guns and walking through the grass barefoot.  Simple things. Difficult to mess up. Hard to be bad at.

Because he was bad at a lot of things.  No one said it to him out right.  They were very kind. They talked with high pitched voices and bright smiles. When they were angry they yelled that he was doing something wrong. Not that he was bad at it. Just wrong. Don’t do that. It’s not the time. It’s not the place. For heaven’s sake STOP!

But Milo knew what they were trying to say. He was bad at it. Bad at everything. Bad at life.

The problem was just that he had trouble articulating things.

“Milo, where did that book go?” “Milo, why aren’t you eating?” “Milo, what are you doing?”

Or maybe it wasn’t that he was bad at articulating things. Maybe there really was just no good answer to these sorts of questions. Or maybe no answer was better than the truth.

After all she didn’t want to know that her favorite book had been torn apart with pages scattered under his bed. She didn’t want to know that the meatloaf looked like a hamster. And as for the existential question: “what are you doing?” well how was he supposed to know? Men much wiser than he had written entire books, taught entire courses on the subject. Milo was just milo-ing along. And do to a great many failures lately, he had decided that the only two options open to him at the moment were nerf guns and barefoot grass. 

Nerf guns… Oh the power! Oh the opportunities! With that bright orange, yellow stripped instrument he was the leader of his very own death brigade. With it he terrorized the neighbors, the cats, the passing joggers. When he ran out of Styrofoam bullets he would scavenge for pebbles. They didn’t even know what hit them.

As for the barefoot grass, well…winter had been long this year. He had spent many afternoons on his tip toes staring through the living room window. She wouldn’t let him leave the house without her. Not even with his shoes on.

                So today he was enjoying the sunshine. He was enjoying the thick green dew dropped grass of his back yard. He was relishing the satisfaction of a well-aimed shot. Not even that crazy dog next door could upset him.

                Suddenly a scream came from outside. Milo stopped in his tracks, swaying for a moment on his short legs.

                “MILO!” she yelled.

                Fear lit up his dark brown eyes covered under a layer of charming cheastnut curls. He stood frozen in the middle of the lawn.

“Milo!” she yelled again, throwing open the back door and brandishing her shoe.”

“Where did this come from Milo? WHERE did this come from?”

She approached him holding the heel an arm’s length away, her nose scrunched up, careful not to touch the dark brown squishy blob at the toe of the shoe.

Milo kept his mouth closed. There was just no good way to explain. It didn’t have to come from him. Maybe it was the cat.

She reached over him and pulled back the top of his pants. Her eyes widened as she surveyed the damage.

“Alright Milo, upstairs. Now.”

Milo started to cry as she pulled the nerf gun from his hands and dragged him towards the house leaving a dark, smelly trail in his wake. There were a lot of things that Milo wasn’t good at. And potty training was one of them.