Seven-year-old Isabella Thompson pressed her hands into the cool, moist dirt of her grandfather's garden. She peeled away the surface like an old scab. Beneath, a reddish-brown earthworm squirmed ... [+]
Translated by Wendy Cross
I gently pressed their lifeless little bodies, letting them slip among their fellows, who had been there long enough for their original shape to have been long forgotten. They were sinking, slipping softly away from me, as if they had a will of their own. Without the slightest emotion, I watched the liquid enter each of their orifices, as if they were nothing but common sponges. The liquid was causing them to asphyxiate slowly and silently.
They were drowning.
Softly. Without fighting or even struggling to get back up to the surface, they were sinking. Without showing the slightest sign of resistance. As if, in a way, they were consenting to their fate. As if they were authorizing me to continue my heartless mission... Or rather, as if they were encouraging me not to stop. I watched, with something near admiration, their form which had grown limp, their color whitish, and the liquid around them which had become sticky. They were no longer themselves, they were no longer what they had been.
They were floating.
Like angels above their milky cloud. Travelling, under the pressure of my hand, through their last resting place. They seemed to have abandoned everything they knew, everything they had experienced, everything they loved. And they no longer belonged to what had once been their world. But, in the end, why was I getting so sentimental? They were only bits of breakfast cereal in a bowl of milk after all.
They were drowning.
Softly. Without fighting or even struggling to get back up to the surface, they were sinking. Without showing the slightest sign of resistance. As if, in a way, they were consenting to their fate. As if they were authorizing me to continue my heartless mission... Or rather, as if they were encouraging me not to stop. I watched, with something near admiration, their form which had grown limp, their color whitish, and the liquid around them which had become sticky. They were no longer themselves, they were no longer what they had been.
They were floating.
Like angels above their milky cloud. Travelling, under the pressure of my hand, through their last resting place. They seemed to have abandoned everything they knew, everything they had experienced, everything they loved. And they no longer belonged to what had once been their world. But, in the end, why was I getting so sentimental? They were only bits of breakfast cereal in a bowl of milk after all.