Knocker

Accident

Knocker and I are alone now. I say I'm sorry for everything, and he says it's okay because I had to because Ma knew too much and Holmer would just always get in the way. I agree that Holmer wasn't helping me very much.

Knocker says to let him out, and I do. I open the cupboard and I pick him up out of the trash. There's some crumbs and dirty napkins on him from supper, and I brush them off. He looks so strange, so different now, like this whole thing has changed him, like he has gotten older. But not the old like the old man next door, or the grannies on T.V. No, Knocker looks stronger.

And yet he doesn't move. I know he can move on his own–I think he can, maybe–but right now he's choosing to let me move  him, carry him, like it's a trust exercise like on T.V. where someone falls back and the fluffy pink bunny catches you and it works because you don't get scared and you don't mess up because you trust the fluffy pink bunny.

Right now I'm the fluffy pink bunny, and Knocker's trusting me. He's closing his eyes and he believes that I will carry him wherever he wants, because I proved myself because I killed Ma and I killed Holmer and now we should bury them like Mr Whiskers. Like Whiskey.

But it was an accident. It was all an accident and I'm so so sorry Ma and I want to hug her and fix her and I want her to be okay. I want us to all be okay.

But it's not.

And I killed Holmer and it wasn't an accident.

Because Holmer had to go because Holmer kept telling my what to do and that was bad because I know that I need to listen to myself and no one else anymore. Ma was the only other person who could tell me what to do, and I know that's true because she was my ma and she loves me. She loved me. And I love her.

Now Holmer and Ma are dead, and it's just me and Knocker. I used to think that Knocker loved me, but now I know that it was never true.

I feel Knocker twitch in my arms, and his eye almost open. Ah, I think, so he doesn't trust me as much as I'd thought.

And he shouldn't.

Because I have to kill him, too.

But somehow I don't really think that he will be as easy.