He always somehow knew this would happen. As the twelve year old stood, frozen in shock in his own back yard, he considered that he always knew this very moment would occur, and yet it held him completely captive. Jonah grew up in the warmer part of the country, and along with the warm weather, he enjoyed the unlimited supply of insects that constantly battled over territory. Jonah was fond of collecting and examining insects he captured. He would keep track of the wide mayonnaise jar as it emptied so it wouldn’t get thrown out. Today, with an empty pickle jar in hand, he wished he could take it all back.
It was when he became used to the thrill of simply having captured an insect that young Jonah began to treat his prisoners especially badly. He drowned them with ammonia, vinegar, or bleach. He rubber-banded them together five or six at a time. He sprayed them with aerosols, his mother’s perfumes, and father’s colognes. He intently watched whatever bug he had just incapacitated, until it became motionless. The television never held his attention this way.
Eventually Jonah turned his efforts to quick, efficient annihilation. He poured pots of boiling water on ant hills, squirted concentrated soap solutions into bee hives, and he turned over logs where insects burrowed quietly and let them dehydrate in direct sunlight. He often ran in the tall grass where started grasshoppers would flutter in long arches away from him. Jonah tried to squash them in stride.
PEREZ - BOUNDARIES
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