text: When I was very small, my aunt took me aside and asked me why I was deliberately stepping on every snail we passed. She grabbed me by the shoulder, pulling me back from my next victim. I remember we were in front of a church. “Why are you doing that?” she asked. The sun was behind her head, and it made it very hard to look at her directly. I tried anyway, squinting at her, hoping I could extract from her angry expression. Because I could, I thought, but didn’t say. Because I was bored? Maybe, but I didn’t say that either. I don’t remember what she said afterwards, or if she said anything at all. I don’t remember how that conversation ended, but I think about it everyday. I’m thinking about it now. I think about it as I watch Arnold Packet beat the ever loving shit out of another one of my classmates. The other boy was Jack Fisher. I knew him, but he was no friend of mine. I didn’t have friends. I was walking through my highschool’s main hallway when it started. I think it was something about a girl, almost definitely it was about a girl. My classmates think I’m simple. I don’t talk much, and I don’t try very hard to fit in. They’re dismissive of me, but I don’t really care. It doesn’t bother me. The important thing is that I see more, understand more than they know I do. Maybe they let me see more because they think I’m simple, maybe I’m just that good. I try not to let it go to my head. I’m no narcissist. For weeks now both boys have juggled the heart of one Jessica Noel, undeniably the prettiest girl in school, as they were themselves the most handsome boys. I was partial to Jack fisher myself, and so was Jessica Noel, not that I cared. I was partial to Jack, but impartial to their love triangle. It wasn’t the type of thing I tended to care about. The hiccup was that Jessica Noel was ostensibly the girlfriend of the aggressor, Arnold Packet, but they weren’t seen together much at school, preferring to rendezvous after class in the evening. They met in the corner booths of local diners, and stole kisses in the darkness of movie theaters. What they didn’t do was interact at school. They didn't dare exchange a single wanting glance in shared classes, or in passing in the hallway. But do you know who Jessica Noel did share ethereal romantic exchanges with? That’s right, Jack Fisher. I don’t know why she didn’t just leave Arnold Packet for Jack Fisher, or why she didn’t publicly acknowledge Arnold as her boyfriend at school. If I had to guess, it's because while Arnold would like to think they were exclusive, Jessica Noel would not. I think, but I’m not sure, that Jessica Noel liked to visit lots of other boys, and only Jack Fisher was fool enough to blatantly eye fuck the girl that the biggest, meanest, son of a bitch in town wanted to be his and his alone. All hearsay, I should warn you. I didn’t know any of this for sure. It was a story I pieced together through hot romantic glances, through rumors and speculation. To the rest of the school, Jessica Noel was very much Arnold Packet’s girl; who only, just only, enjoyed teasing other boys, and nothing more. As far as the rest of the school could tell, Jessica Noel kept a marital bed. So when Jessica stopped buying tampons from the dispenser in the girl’s bathroom, there was no question why, and who. Obviously it was Arnold Packet’s kid, obviously. Except unless you were paying attention. Any guesses? I walked past the viscous, and brutal mauling of Jack Fisher in the hallway. It wasn’t my business. There was no starring role or bit part for me in the soap opera of their lives. Like I said before, I didn’t care. Not then anyway. It was weeks later, closer to a couple months I think, I can’t recall now, it’s been so long and I only had a passing interest in the entire affair. Jack Fisher had gone missing. No one knew why, but many suspected that he simply decided to run away, riding his motorcycle into that cool orange sunset reserved exclusively for handsome teenage boys. Never to be seen again. I knew better though. Jack Fisher didn’t ride off to wherever teenage heartthrobs ride off to. He was still in town, taking a long nap underneath a heap of dirt. I wonder who had tucked him in? The rest of the town certainly never found out. It was another one of those secrets that you could only know through the tension between lovers, through a hot war gone super cold. After the vicious beating of Jack Fisher, Arnold left him completely alone. It was almost like someone had intervened on his behalf, sparing Jack Fisher further beatings, but sealing his death sentence in the long run. Who can say, really? All I had was cold conjecture, not concrete fact. I had enough for myself though. I had been partial to Jack Fisher, maybe, I think, I had a fondness for him. Maybe I had liked him, as much as anyone like me can like anybody. “Why did you kill Jack Fisher?” I asked Arnold Packet one night. He was alone, drinking beer by a misty lake, leaning on the hood of his car. It was prom night, but neither he nor I were attending, had never planned on attending. I couldn’t care less about prom, and he was miserably single. That on top of being a newfound reject. Since Jack Fisher’s mysterious disappearance he’d been very quick to anger, and very emotional. His instability at this time had nearly cost him the life of what everyone believed to be his child. Jessica Noel wanted nothing to do with him afterward, and the entire town, including Arnold’s parents, had stood behind the mother to be. “Why did you kill Jack Fisher?” I asked him again. He didn’t answer. I don’t think he had a good one. I shot him. Once in the gut, and once in each knee, in quick succession. I don’t mean to sound narcissistic, but I was a very good shot. I blew away the smoke from the end of the barrel like I was a femme fatale in a movie. I watched Arnold Packet crawl away from me, his bleeding gut leaving a trail of shifted dirt, not unlike a snail’s.