Paul is ? Paul was my brother and in 1960 at the age of about 7, I killed him. It was an accident that I still feel guilty about to this day.
While playing on my grandparents farm one cold rainy summer day. We were tossing a pitchfork into the water at frogs swimming in an old wooden cattle watering tank. He would try to spear them as they swam to my side and I would try to spear them as they swam to his side of the tank. We practiced throwing it maybe a dozen times each never hitting the frogs but coming close.
The last and fatal time I threw the pitchfork I released it with a little too much force and at the same time he reached down to grab at one of the frogs. Shockingly, instead of spearing into the water on his side of the tank, it struck him in the forehead. Both of us were shocked, three of the four fork tines pierced his skull.
We removed the fork and rushed him to the emergency room. That night I was taken home while he lay at the hospital, his condition unknown to me. I could hardly bear the guilt and prayed that he wouldn't die.
He spent a few nights in the hospital and we all thought that he had made it. He seemed to have recovered fully and everything appeared to be back to normal, that is except for the emotional scars that it had left on the both of us. Then a few years later the unexpected happened, he left us. Knowone really knows why for sure, some say it was the pitchfork, others say it was fate. Whatever the reason, he has gone away, slipping across the universe.
Hello Paul where ever you are! |
