Child Theology

I stood in the long wet grass in my bare feet beside my sister. I held the plastic knife in my fat little hand and looked into the deep blue sky. I can still smell the chemical residue of the huge green pipe my dad scrounged from the chemical plant, the dog shit, and the fresh spring breeze that insisted on putting itself on record in spite of the gloom we felt beneath the low but warm May sun. Were it not for that breeze I'm sure the whole memory would be in moldy sepia. Instead, my sister's sleeveless white sundress with the periwinkle flowers, my blue elastic-waste shorts and the dandelion-infested rich green grass lay imprinted on my life. I don't know why she was angry with us. I don't know why she screamed at us to get outside before she brained us but whatever it was seemed so painful at the time. It must have been for me to grab that plastic knife on my way through her kitchen.

"I jus' wanna go see God, I'm tired of being alive" I told my sister. "I'll cut my wrist first and you can do yours next and then we'll go to heaven together!" "No, God don't like us to bleed and I don't like it either so we can't" she scolded me. "It'll be okay, lets go swing" and we did.