The blond boy in black was holding down his brother underwater. It wasn't pretty. Seeing the small thing struggle and soon stop, suddenly. Did he deserve it ? Did he know he was going to die, there, in this swimming pool ? Was he ready ? Are we ever ready, when it comes I mean. The water swallowed him so perfectly, arms open like "welcome home". He looked peacetul under the watchtul gaze of his brother, or at least he did until the picture warped, screamed and then drowned itself in white noise. I watched it hiss in snow and thought about my own brother. The day I caught him in the backyard, shivering, hands trembling around a rock. You cried big tears and confessed how much you loved it. I thought you meant the cat. You were just a child, now you are nothing. Before this, I had forgotten you. Have I ever had a brother ? Long ago, yes, for a split second, maybe.

When I went out to kill myself, I saw a deer half on the shoulder and half in the ditch. Whatever the cause of the accident had opened the animal along the abdomen almost cleanly. The skin had torn unevenly from the sternum down to the pelvis, exposing layers of fat, muscle, and loops of intestine that had slid partially free onto the dirt path. They were darker than I would've imagined. Not bright red, no, but a dense wet brown with shine to them under the morning light.

One hind leg had detached almost completely except for a length of skin and tendon near the hip. The other one was folded beneath the torso at an angle that made the joint structure difficult to follow. Part of the ribcage was visible through the left side of the chest where the impact had collapsed it inward. Multiple ribs had broken through the muscle and hide. They looked smooth and pale compared to everything around them.

The body was still warm. In the cold air of winter, heat rose visibly from the opened cavity. The organs moved slightly each time trapped air escaped the lungs. It created the impression of breathing until I drew in and looked closely enough to see that the chest itself was no longer capable of expanding.

The head itself was intact except for the lower jaw, which had shifted sideways enough to leave the tongue protruding between the teeth. One eye had ruptured during the impact. The other remained open and reflective, coated by a strange thin layer of dust. There were fragments of safety glass embedded in the fur around the neck and shoulder.

Blood had spread beneath the carcass and mixed with the piling snow still falling above us. Diluted at the edges, thicker near the torso. Some of it had already begun to clot in the fur around the wound, stiffening it into dark pointed clumps

The smell was strongest near the abdomen. Wet fur, intestinal contents, iron and coolant from the damaged car radiator. Underneath it there was something faintly sweet beginning to develop already, despite the body still being warm.

The passenger of the car, half here and bottom half there, dead.

There was nothing more to see. I turned around and left.

I didn't like the reminder, no, the worst had already happened. What else more? I thought it was the worst and thought nothing worse could ever come alter that.

So then, of course, I got home and nothing did