--RUNNING ON EMPTY

       

                                           Fairy Tales

      There was nothing to do, so they took turns shooting at each other.  It was just pellets, but the metal bits still stung and to get one in the eye meant blindness.

       They were in the craggy woods that drifted off behind the trailer lot.  A breeze carried the stench of rotting things, garbage, food waste and perhaps decomposing animal carcasses.

       They each got hit several times.  One raised a welt the size of grape on the boy’s neck.  The older brother laughed when he saw it and so the younger one laughed as well.  It felt exciting to be happy about something for once.