As all children are, he was naïve. He found himself teetering between the space where the plush carpet ended and the waxed hard wood floors began. He rocked from heel to sole as he skimmed his father’s study: large wooden desk, gargantuan bookcase, large black swivel chair, tall, tall plants, large rows of black adult, important books. Everything seemed bigger than his body, so when he spotted a small colorful plastic box he knew it didn’t belong in there. He knew it would be okay to take it. He felt anxious, nervous, and excited. He dashed across the wooden floor. The sound of his dirty, clammy feet sticking to each step sounded like soggy Band-Aids being ripped off the skin taking with it scabs. He stood on the swivel chair catching his balance with each involuntary roll. He abducted the toy from his father’s shelf and rushed back to the safe haven of the plush carpet. He forced the box open with a bang ! Inside he found toys: a metallic gun and a little man in an orange space suite. He held the gun between his thumb and index and aimed. “Bam ! Bam ! Bwew !” He shrieked at the window. His eyes became violent when he called out, “OUR ENEMIES ARE UPON US !” He learned who the enemies were from television and his father and his father’s father; they recited the history and in turn his blood churned with misguided hatred. He saluted the astronaut, “Our enemies are no longer in space. They are here. We need every man we got. We have to kill our enemies ! They’ve taken our land and claimed it as their own.” He grabbed the little astronaut and ran with him wildly, screaming ‘die, die, die’ ! After 15 minutes his mother angrily hushed him to bed, but before she tucked him in he put the gun in the astronaut hands and whispered, “Kill anyone and everyone who is full of the enemies’ blood” and with that he slipped off the sleep.

The astronaut stirred when all was quiet; he’d visit the boy last. He began to pitter-patter across the carpet. He pitter-pattered through the door frame. He pitter-pattered through the house. When the astronaut came to the boy’s father’s study he found the father’s head buried in a newspaper. He could see the headline: “Their Behavior Obstructs Development of Ties.” The astronaut pointed his gun at the father’s head and he took aim...