I walk a dog named Freddy. Freddy was trained extensively to be a hunting companion. I’ve only walked Freddy a few times, this afternoon being my third.

It was raining, what the radio would call “light showers”. The sort of rain that seems to hover in place instead of fall. It soaks you, not because fat drops are landing on you, but because you’re passing through a low hanging cloud.

I had paused on the hike to take in my surroundings. If I don’t do this every once in a while, I forget how amazing my work is. My hours blur together into a smear called “job” and I begin to feel like I’m waiting for something. That’s when I’m most unhappy, when the inexplicable tedium of life settles in. When I feel like I’m sludging through day after day, task after task, to get to some end that I can’t quite name. This type of boredom is unbearable, a distant cousin to depression and a sister to pain.

So I paused. I watched the mists lounge lazily among the treetops, the six dogs running circles at my feet. It may sound unlikely, but I’ve come to know each dog by their gait and by their breathe. Just as a parent knows which child has crept out of bed, I can tell by the footfalls which dog has strayed from the pack.

Freddy was in the bushes, it must have been him. His long, loping gait; the sound of branches breaking high because he’s very tall. It was Freddy, bounding out of the underbrush and bringing me a gift-

A thrush-like bird, clenched between his jaws and wounded terribly: I knew at first glance it would die soon.

It’s wings were broken- bent backwards and crossing each other, trying to trade sides. The little ribcage was dented, caving in on the right side. As I reflect on this, I see my grandmother. She lost a lung to cancer. Her ribcage would also flutter and move, her and the bird took the same shallow breaths. It strikes me now how death comes in many forms. For my grandmother it was cancer, a shape that comes too often. Today, for that bird, death manifested in me.

I couldn’t leave it there to die. I couldn’t leave it there alone and fading, completely immobilized and scared- and I’m certain it was scared. The dogs kept coming up and nosing it, giving it sidelong glances and motions as though to snatch it. I shoved them away, pushing their snouts in different directions.

I called my partner, needing to hear him say it aloud.

“What do I do?” I asked, the tears coming hot.

“You have to find a rock…” His voice faded away. I had already picked one, it was sitting right there, not five feet from the bird. Cinematically placed. I hung up the phone. I needed two hands for this.

Grasping the rock on either side, I hauled it upwards. It was heavy. I’m glad it was heavy.

I breathed, inhaling and exhaling too quickly, the blood rushing into my head and away from my extremities. Adrenaline, I feel it so rarely. I heaved, lifting the rock upwards, gripping it tight. I screamed, and in the hovering rain in the middle of the day, I brought the rock down.

The thumping of the impact and my guttural scream muted the sound of crushing bones. The rock bounced off of the bird and I saw the head twitch- I grabbed the rock again, smashing it down so immediately fast. I couldn’t let it suffer for one more second.

“I’m sorry birdie.” I said, after the fact. I said, as I cried.

I shoved the bird off to the side of the road with a stick, I buried it best I could under more large stones and sticks. I couldn’t let the dogs get at it.

I cried as I ran through the woods, my six dogs running by my side. I ran and I ran. Away from the bird and away from the death. I ran until I wasn’t crying and I wasn’t thinking and I wasn’t feeling anymore.

I have never, ever experienced anything so feral and fucked up. I have never killed an animal. Spiders and centipedes yes, but nothing like this. I have never picked up a rock and destroyed an animal with the force of my own hands. I have never seen the mangled corpse of a bird that I just killed.

I have never been death before.

-LF