In the barn is where the mice live and that's where I'd take the cats, Mr. Chibbles would sit and wag his tail until he caught one scurrying across the floor, there's always an amber glow in the barn and the smell of horses. Mr. Chibbles would catch a mouse and pop it a few times until it quit squirming, and he'd eat the little rat body, sometimes you could see their pink stomachs, he would lick it, Mrs. Chibbles was more delicate, she'd catch one and kill the doomed creature but never torture it like Mr. Chibbles did, Mr. Chibbles was the real rat killer.
I would sit up top in the loft and my sister couldn't find me, I would hear her calling out into the blue nothingness, it hurt me that I upset her, that she couldn't find me, and she'd cry, but I'd hide anyway, I'm cruel, she has always clung to me, and now she doesn't, she has her life in a big city now, and I have no one, I did this to myself, and going into the barn where there are snakes, mice and memories of my cats and horses has made me feel downcast, my brother used to throw entire bales of hay up top like a wrestler tossing an opponent, I wish I had ox-like strength, I'd kill everyone.