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Short Story / Mercy (Analysis)
Mercy
“But it was for mercy,” I wanted to scream. My wrists ached from the handcuffs which bit into my skin. My head spun with the cadence of blue which cast a blipping light into my retina as I stared out the window of the police car.
Didn’t even Jesus himself say, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be given mercy?”
I had learned my lesson with the squirrel. Didn’t they know that I had made my mistake before? I could not do it again.
It had been 1972. My younger brother and I were coming back from our morning run to check the crab traps before we boarded the school bus that would take us to our small Christian private school across town. My father would let me drive the antiquated 1957 green Ford truck, even though I was only twelve years old. I was a tall, lanky girl though and, lucky for me, the clutch was on the steering column, which allowed me a few inches to slide down sideways on the high bench seat to mash the gas pedal. The road down to the dock was not that busy, used only by the neighbors on our street, so my father must have thought that since I could at least keep the truck on the gravel, I was somewhat safe.
Eddie and I would set out in the truck at the break of dawn to head down to the river. I did all the work, hauling the traps up, checking to see if the chicken necks were still tied in place, while Eddie poked at the crabs with sticks of marsh grass. We stood on the rickety wooden dock, dumping crabs into the tin bucket and watching the sun come up over the yellowed marsh grass.
It was on the way back that day that I saw it – a small brown lump in the road. I might have just dismissed it as a piece of branch, except that it was moving. I slammed on the brakes and threw the truck into park. Eddie and I got out and surveyed the brown lump. It was a squirrel.
Its back legs had been severed completely off, probably by a speeding car. The force of the amputation has sealed the wound, so that although the squirrel was bleeding, it was still conscience and moving. The squirrel drug its upper torso across the road, making a streak of red against the white crushed oyster shells which covered the dirt road. It was valiant in its effort, intent on getting to the other side.
Eddie and I stared in horror for minutes at the pathetic creature as it made its way tenuously across the road. Thoughts flooded my mind. Why was this squirrel trying to get across the street? Was it instinctively trying to flee from danger? Did it know that it was dying? I felt sorrow crushing my heart muscles and I held my breath, as though somehow I could will it across the street by my own suffering.
“You’ve got to run it over, Sarah,” Eddie said, his eyes never leaving the squirrel. “You’ve got to put it out of its misery.” The excitement in his voice was palpable.
I stared at him, offended at first. His eyes gleamed with that boy look of destruction. He was right though. I looked back at the squirrel which had not stopped its journey, even with our presence.
“No,” I said quietly. “No. I can’t do it.”
Eddie looked at me. “Girls,” he said, a sneer crossing his upper lip. He walked around the side of the truck, and I thought that he was getting back in. I waited a moment, my eyes intent on the animal in front of me. It was only then that I saw the edge of the board rise up above my head.
“No,” I shrieked as the edge of the board came crashing down into the squirrel’s skull. I stuck out my hands, as if it were not too late to halt the fatal blow, as bits of red dotted my hands and my bare feet. Eddie drew back with the board and swung again, even though the first blow had obviously stilled the dying animal. He swung again and again until the squirrel’s head was even with the road. Tears ran down my cheeks, but I could not speak. I stood there, gasping for breath, wiping my spattered hands across my blue jeans.
Eddie threw the bloodied board nonchalantly into the back of the pick-up and pulled himself into the truck, staring out of the dusty windshield at me. I mutely stood. I could not look at the shattered carcass but fixed my eyes off down the road as the morning sun shone over my shoulder, illuminating the fluff of matted brown like a sacrificial lamb. I steadied my shaking hands, climbed into the truck, and drove back home in silence.
It was twenty years later that I stood looking down at my mother as she gasped and wheezed for breath. Cancer of the lungs had quickly felled Mama, turning her from the strong woman who had politely turned away offers for assistance after Daddy died to a shell of bones and putrid excrements which lay in front of me now.
Eddie’s wife, Linda, came over to help, but there are just some things that only real family ought to do. It had been fairly easy at first, feeding her, bathing her, combing her hair. The medicines became more difficult. Mama had lost her private insurance when Daddy died, so I tried to do as much as I could.
“You could put her in the home,” the social worker had told me quietly, pressing my arm insistently with her fleshy finger. “She would qualify, you know. She’d get the care she needs.”
The “home” was the Bellwood Nursing Home at the other side of town, the state-run home for the indigent and “other.” Mama was a proud woman and even I knew that she’d rather die than live off the assistance of the state.
So I had cared for her as long as I could. The nurse, who came in every other day, had pronounced that the end was coming.
“You need to call an ambulance,” she stated emotionlessly when I took the phone from her. “Her kidneys are shutting down. It’s only a matter of time.” She left in a huff, probably thinking that she would never have to make the trip again.
So Mama laid there, bits of saliva dripping from the corners of her wrinkled jaundiced mouth. Her fearless rattling reminded me of that squirrel so long ago, intent on its death march, oblivious to the world around it in its mission to escape what had hurt it. Escape from its suffering.
“Blessed are the merciful,” I said softly.
I raised the bat up over my head.
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moofish2 reviewed Version 2 -
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yeah, it’s good. “It had been 1972”- I’m not sure if “it was 1972” would have worked better. But thats just my opinion. I’m also unsure about the same sentence as the other reviewer picked up on. It IS quite long. But bar those two little flaws, it’s definately readable
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TNMG reviewed Version 1 -
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I likes the storline of this story and also that it was written in the first person although what i wasnt that keen on was the long sentances like “My younger brother and I were coming back from our morning run to check the crab traps before we boarded the school bus that would take us to our small Christian private school across town” it wasnt split up with ant punctuation and you where gaspin gfor air when reading it i would add a few more shorter sentances if it was my story but this is just my personal opinion
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