And here is the other half of the story from last week:

Still they were magnificent beasts. I lingered just a bit longer before fear that the fence would not hold against even the smallest among them overtook me and I got the hell out of there. Dropping the dog off now was out of the question as the researchers and scientists would be following the buffalo and they surely would discover the dog.  I would have to drop it off somewhere else.

I lied just now when I said that the first time I killed something bigger than a breadbox was when I was sixteen. Technically that is untrue.  When I was eleven years old, my family opened their house to foster children, a very common thing during the war. My adopted brother was named Arthur. He was fat, ugly, and a terrible person to be around. He didn’t like sports or movies and he had asthma and he smelled like wet fur.  But the worst thing about Arthur was that he would get nose bleeds.  When he got nose bleeds he would sit on top of me and threaten to blow his nose blood all over me.     

He would do it to get things from me. Usually food.  Once, late Easter morning after church he started to bleed.  He shoved me onto my bed and sat on my chest. Boy was he fat. It was getting to the point that he didn’t have to threaten me with blood anymore, just sitting on me was enough to get me to gasp out whatever stupid demand he wanted.  But he always did.

This time he wanted my candy. I quickly agreed.  And he laughed and blew blood on my face anyway. It got on my shirt collar and I caught hell for messing up my church clothes. My parents didn’t believe me or they pretended that they didn’t because they felt sorry for the little ape. 

He also took a liking to blowing his blood out over things that I just liked.  Things that he didn’t want but also didn’t want me to have.  Comic books, baseball caps, that sort of thing. My all time favorite possession was a signed photo of Bill Murray.  When he bled on that I snapped.

I took my pocket knife out and I pointed it at his piggish face. I told him if he wanted to bleed so badly, I would help him.  He was really scared then. I was happy to see how scared he was of me. I understood, vaguely why he would sit on me all the time. Why had I never done this before, I wondered. 

He started crying. Please don’t. I’m sorry. Please. I’m sorry.  I won’t ever do it again. 

I don’t think I fully understood what would happen. I certainly wasn’t thinking about it and it felt like I wasn’t in control of my own body.  It was like when you stand up suddenly or wake up and you feel like you are floating around and dreaming.  I was there and not there.  He pissed himself.

I plunged the knife into his right breast.  I stabbed him and when I pulled the knife out to do it again, a burst of feathers came out.

I dropped the knife and he collapsed up against his desk.  I looked at the hole and I reached inside and pulled out a single gold finch.  The bird looked at me and cocked his head. I looked at him. The bird turned and bit my finger. He drew blood. I threw him away and sucked on the fresh cut. He flew over to the window sill.

There he tapped three dots of blood on the pane.  He looked over his shoulder and said hey how’s about a little help with the window?

I did and he bit my other finger and flew away. I looked at my hands and then I looked over at Arthur. Arthur looked at me and blinked.

He never blew his bloody nose on me again.