Sam Pink - Hurt Others

“I’d like to see a trick, yes,” I said. “Show me a trick.”

He set the toad down on top of the paperbag.

“Twigk twick,” he said loudly, pinching the crotch area of his sweatpants.

The smell of piss and shit got stronger.

The toad breathed slowly, ribcage expanding on either side of its face.

And I couldn’t help but associate the piss and shit smell with the toad.

The toad was garbage.

Shit and piss toad.

“Twick,” the teenager said, again. Then carefully, “Z, uh twick. Z, trick.”

“Ok do the trick,” I said.

He pinched a baby rabbit by the loose skin around its neck and then held the baby rabbit near the mouth of the toad.

The toad blinked.

Nothing happened.

Something wasn’t happening.

Something wasn’t working.

Something was wrong.

I felt gravity happen inside me.

A different gravity from the one happening outside my body.

The teenager in the Chicago Bulls coat cried, and scratched his face with his free hand.

What a pussy — I thought, unable to tell who I thought that about.

Who’s who.

He pushed the baby rabbit against the toad’s mouth again.

“The trick isn’t working,” I said.

He flicked the toad’s eye.

The toad tensed.

Another flick to the eye.

The toad jumped forward, eating the baby rabbit.

Only the baby rabbit’s hind-legs remained, sticking out from the toad’s mouth.

“Motooz,” the teenager said. “Twick.”

And he calmed down, smiling.

He stood and clapped, looking at me.

I joined in the clapping.

It was hard to tell who’s who.

Everything smelled so bad.

We watched the toad finish the rabbit in labored swallows.

I thought — This is the world at present including everything that has ever happened.

And I felt entirely the same.

“Motooz,” the teenager said. “Motooz twig.”

Then he stomped down hard, missing the bulk of the toad, but snapping both its hind-legs under his Velcro boot.

And the hind-legs hung there, stripped and broken.

Soft looking bones came out of the skin.

Trying to move, the toad could only circle.

Its front legs scraped the ground, grabbing wet dirt but getting nowhere.

This is the toad’s entire life, including everything that has ever happened — I thought.

And it was hard to tell who’s who.

The teenager in the dirty Chicago Bulls coat scratched his face again, upset as he watched the toad circling.

He yelled and ran away, back down the alley gone.

Gone as he came.

Backwards along the same path.

Only the toad remained, circling pathetic, with some very small stones sticking to its skin.

And I thought about how someone seeing all of this from very high above sees something with its legs stripped and broken.

Just circling.

And I thought about how it would be hard to tell who’s who.