Mud flies up against his fender.
Dust clouds form behind him.
Water splashes to his sides.
The little boy had been riding his blue and white BMX all summer, and decided it would a nice idea to cross through the park.
The noise coming from the baseball card stuck between his spokes, gives him the idea he’s going much faster than he actually is.
He races around the pond, through the grass and over the humps, tightly wrapping his little fingers on steering wheel.
His tires pluck out chunks of grass and dirt, scaring the ducks hiding in the reeds, so they fly to the middle of the pond just to be safe.
He zigzags between joggers and using the bump on the bridge he launches himself about an inch into the air for a split second, but to him it felt more like one foot, for at least a minute.
He continues speeding down the same path, small pebbles ricochet off his wheels and hit unsuspecting strangers who were sitting on the benches trying to enjoy this sunny day.
He made his way from the park to his school, now closed down because of the summer vacation, but he found a way to get his bike onto the courtyard and started racing through the playground and pass the windows of the empty classrooms.
In the middle of the courtyard a bunch of doves were pecking their beaks at anything that looked even remotely eatable.
He comes to a sliding stop when his mind came up with the impulsive idea to bike straight through the group of birds.
His hand twisted the handle, like he was revving up a motorcycle.
Vroom, his lips trembled.
He kicked his peddles as fast as he could and drove straight through the group of birds that flew into every direction.
All but one.
One dove flew straight into the spokes of his wheel, which by the speed was close to a blender.
The boy immediately stopped his bike, all around him feathers sway down to the ground.
He dropped his bike and walked over to what was left of the grey dove, he kneeled next to it and noticed there were spots of blood on his black and white Chucks.
It was breathing it’s last heavy breaths before it died, the boy kept on staring at the plucked dove until the sun started to go down.
The bird is left behind, he got back on his bike and the whole ride home he had to look at a spot of blood on his wheel that showed each time his wheel spins around.
When he crossed the street to his home he failed to notice the car that was just about to take a left.
They collide and the boy is sent off flying, time seems to move slow for a moment. Some doves begin flying next to him, they look just like the one from the schoolyard. Maybe they are he thinks to himself and a tears form in the corner of his eye.
They swoop downward below him and he softly lands on the concrete sidewalk. The driver tries to wake him up and when he finally does he gets up and doesn’t have a scratch on him.
It must have been a miracle the driver said. But it wasn’t, the boy looked down and saw the doves that sacrificed themselves to save him.
The driver drove the boy and his wrecked bike home, the boy went into the garage and grabbed an old unused suitcase and walked back to the sidewalk where the birds were and placed them inside the suitcase.
He went back to the school to get the other one, and went to a corner of the park where no one could bust him for digging a hole.
He gave them a family burial and thanked them for saving his life.
And after he thrown the last scoop of dirt into the hole he felt something moist drop on top of his head, he used the tips of his fingers to see what it was, they returned with a white, almost paint like poo.
He looked up at the grey dirty looking dove sitting on a branch that did nothing more than coo at him.

A deer crossed the road, and got trapped in his headlights.
It’s eyes looked straight into his, there was no escaping them.
Suddenly going 80 mph was nothing more than driving in slow motion.
The distance between the two became smaller with his every heartbeat.
He was frozen like a statue, unable to move, he could only watch them collide.
He felt the shock of the initial impact as the deer wrecked the car’s grill and made a dent in the bumper.
Shivers climbed up his spine and left his body through the tiny hairs on his forearms.
He watched the deer’s ribs crack and make a small crater in the hood of his car.
The deer’s coat stained throughout with its own fresh blood, gleamed in the moonlight.
He could only watch the deer’s neck snap as it hit his windshield, it cracked and blood splattered all over it.
His eyes were still looking into the deer’s, his eyes became wet as tears started to fall down his cheeks.
His vision became blurry, his hands got colder and he found himself staring into the stream of running water that cleansed him of the sticky blood that was on his hands.
Blood mixed with the water from the tap and swirled into the drain.
His wife walked up to him and kept her silence.
He was ignoring her and was still staring into the sink, he cleaned his hands with soap and water for a whole day, and thought about the funeral the deer’s family were giving him.
Deer standing around an open grave, mourning widow, crying deer calves.
He dried his hands and his wife asked him what had happened to the car.

Mrs. Gittel was rolling on the floor in the middle of her living room, coughing, choking and kicking her legs around.
The 99 stray cats she took into her home were all around her, watching her.
Some on top of bookcases, others on the furniture, most were confused by what was going on and some had just woken up from a nap.
The cats knew something was wrong with the cat-lady and some started meowing while others were rubbing their heads against hers.
But it was too late and by the time the social workers found her the cats had eaten most of her.
To really understand how this came to be, we have to start at the beginning, skipping ahead to the point where she was completely closed of from the outside world and surrounded by dozen of stray cats.
It was a day & night job feeding all the cats, cleaning all the litter boxes and keeping them from fighting.
The back door that connects to the kitchen was always open and while she was filling some bowls with cat food, she heard a familiar voice behind her, coming from the doorstep.
At first she couldn’t believe it, but then the voice talked to her again, “Hi Irene, how have you been?”
Her knees got weak and she felt her heart beat heavy in her chest, she swallowed a big metaphorical chunk down her throat and turned around. “Henry?”
She saw a cat with a beautiful grey fur sitting on the doorstep looking up at her with his beady eyes, she got down on one knee and stroked his head.
“Long time no see.”, The cat said in between the sound of purring, “I see you have made a lot of friends.”
She couldn’t believe her ears and eyes, “Henry is that really you?”
He shacked his tail and said, “Who else doll face.”
And with him calling her that, she was certain, and the following days they talked each morning but he refused to step a paw into the house.
She had been missing her husband for many years now, and his reincarnation came as a gift she happily accepted.
On night she picked him up and carried him into her bedroom, she got rid of all the other cats and shut the door.
They talked deep into the night and each morning she carried him back outside.
After a while he even watched television with her in the living room, and one night while watching Casablanca, the movie they watched on their first date, he asked her to kiss him. And she did.
Their mouths moved closed and his mouth opened and he bag to hurl, but she had bad hearing and her eyes were closed shut, imagining her husband when he was 20 years old.
Her mouth covered his and the cat spits out a hairball straight into her windpipe.
The cat got scared and ran back outside.
And if it’s thoughts could be translated into English they would probably be close to something like, ‘Thats one crazy cat lady.’

Every night Nelson snuck out of his bedroom window and climbed on the small roof above his room to watch the stars above his house.
Sitting there in his space mission pajamas with his head tipped back he dreams of being way out there.
Far away from fighting parents, mean sisters and bullies into the black abyss surrounded by nothing but silence.
He was very careful not to get busted, so he knew when he heard the porch door slam shut his mother had walked outside so secretly smoke a cigarette, doing her best to hid it from his father.
He peeked down to see if it was really her and made his way back to his room
During the day on his way and coming from school he tried finding the stars from the night before again, but the sun made sure he couldn’t see the stars above, like a giant bully in the sky the sun stared and laughed at him.
Nelson got bullied at school today like all other days, but today was different, today while he flew for a brief moment when he got pushed off a set of stairs he had an idea.
Time seemed to move so slow it was as if gravity took a break and gave him time to think of a plan to get out of this place.
He would build a rocket that would take him to the moon and beyond!
As he lands on the tile floor, with his backpack breaking his fall, he keeps a big smile on his face.
When he got home, he ran upstairs to his room, swiped his desk clean in one motion and threw down some paper and started drawing some blueprints for his spacecraft.
After completing his design he marked the last day of school on his calendar and promised himself he would take off on the first day of summer.
After dinner he went into the backyard and opened up the small shed next to the back porch and began to collect materials and tools he’d need to build his rocket.
Nelson was a quite boy and his parents knew nothing about him, and they were too busy arguing with each other to even go see what he was up too.
He worked until his small limbs ached to the bone and blisters popped up in the palm of his hands like daisies in a field.
It took him a couple of weeks to finish all the parts, and had collected fuel from numerous places, which he stored in empty soda bottles in the shed.
Things were heating up at home and at night while he was lying in bed he could hear his parents fight and threatened to divorce, on those nights he snuck up onto the roof to gaze at the stars, who would never leave him.
The next day was his last day of school and after getting picked on for the last time that semester he went back to his backyard and attached all the pieces of his rocket.
When he was done with that he hoisted it up so it faced the sky and stepped back and admired his hard work.
His parents called him inside and took him into the living room, when his mother said they had to talk to him about something very serious and he saw his older sister in tears, he already knew what was going to be said, so he blocked out the world as they talked for a very long time.
He was drifting through space,waving at the satellites and seeing the most beautiful sights one could ever see, from the many planets this galaxy has to flying stars and nebulas.
The words ‘we are getting a divorce’ entered his universe he got pulled into a black hole and found himself in tears on the couch.
He was used to living in a nice family until his parents started fighting and his sister rebelled against him saying it was all his fault.
He ran upstairs and locked himself in his room and his parents tried to get him out but he refused to talk.
After the sun had set and the stars were looking back down at him, he climbed out of his window wearing the spaceman halloween costume he wore every year. And instead of going up onto the roof he climbed down into the front yard and walked around the house to where his rocket was, opened the shed as quietly as he could and picked up some of the bottles of fuel. And as he came out of the shed he heard the porch door slam shut and dropped some of the bottles, his mother heard and called out his name, Nelson is that you?
He held onto two bottles and ran to his rocket and locked himself inside.
His mother came after him and threw her just lit cigarette away, it landed right in front of the shed.
It laid there glowing until the liquid fuel he sucked out of the lawnmower with a long rubber tube, got in contact with the cigarette set the shed on fire.
His mother noticed and screamed liked crazy when the flames went over to the house.
He crawled out of his rocket and saw the enormous flames eating up their home.
His mother called the fire department on her cell and dragged him to the front of the house, she fell on her knees screaming his father’s name and calling out to his sister.
Her face was covered in tears and he hugged her tightly, his father barged out of the front door carrying his sister, fire trucks pulled up behind them.
His father had some slight burns and the paramedics took care of him, after the flames were extinguished they went to their grandmothers house for a while.
It was a small home but everyone was more at ease and during the summer his parents fell back in love as the fire
The fire did more than burn down your home, his grandmother said, it also reignited their passion.
He had no idea what she was on about, and walked outside.
His sister pushed him over and said it was all his fault.
All his fault they were a happy family again, and reached out and helped him back up again.

Music is blasting through the stereo in his dusty bedroom.
The secret cult of collectibles scattered on bookshelves stare at him as he cries into a pillow because another girl had rejected him.
Melodies attempt to hush his mother’s high pitched voice that rumbles through his mind.
The words that are screaming out of the speakers melt his high school worries like a ice cube left in the sun.

As a kid the only thing I liked about school was drawing, and I went to a Catholic school so liking anything was pretty unusual. And we weren’t allowed to draw anything that involved fantasy creatures, and the only thing we were allowed to make drawings about was the miracles Jesus preformed. The nuns were like art critiques that rated our doodles as if they were suppose to be fine pieces of art.
I was drawing a picture of Jesus healing two blind men in Galilee, which looked more like he was extracting their brains with a ray of light.
Then one of my classmates decided it would be funny to tell me that the magic marker that I accidentally got on my hand would cause me to, “Get cancer and that I would die within half an hour.”
And I wasn’t allowed to tell any of the nuns because they would punish me for being careless enough to do something that would cause my death.
During the mass in a small manufactured chapel I kept looking over my shoulder at the clock on the wall behind us, to see how much time I had left to live.
The nuns noticed and benched me for not paying attention to the pastor’s magnificent preaching.
While we walked back to our classroom we passed looked outside through the big glass windows down onto the cold grey empty playground, and saw a young boy clapping erasers.
“He ate a piece of clay once, and as punishment he has to clap all the school’s erasers for the rest of his life.”, She told me before one of the nuns grabbed her by the ear and took her to the head mistress never to be seen again.

You came on over to play, in my backyard like we always did.
Hunting in the bushes behind the house, for wildebeest.
We ran through the woods to see who could get their cloths the dirtiest.
My red dress turned a dark shade of purple, your jeans a dark blue with green smudges.
We run back to my house, hoping that my mom wouldn’t notice us.
You tell me to wait here, you have something special to show me, you said.
I waited and when you returned you carried a glass pickle jar.
You catch another caterpillar, and promised me you would set it free later.
The sky above us cracked and rain poured down on us, soaking our clothes in a instant.
We were standing on the back porch, smiling nervously.
You kissed me on the lips, my first kiss and it felt like it lasted for hours.
But then you told me you were moving that afternoon to a new home far away, you ran away and couldn’t look back.
The next day I checked to see if you were there, you were gone, and I found the pickle jar still closed.
The caterpillar died and you broke your promise.
I sat at the kitchen table, thinking about you and the caterpillar that never grew into a butterfly.
Staring at the fridge I noticed we were just like two magnets that wanted to meet but kept pushing each other away, but always rotating around one another.
My mom picked the the magnet that represented you and placed a note underneath it.
‘Buy pickles.’ It said.