Sin

I don't remember if I cried.

Mom showed it to me; she found it in the bathroom, a tiny lizard frightened and confused dashing around the space, its minute lungs visibly contracting on the rare occasions it actually stopped running. It was hard to keep up with it... I liked it as soon as I saw it. I've always liked lizards, and this was the smallest and cutest one I'd ever seen. We wanted to take it outside so nothing would happen to it in our house. After all, there wouldn't be anything to eat, and there were the cats.

I wouldn't remember it at all if it had happened the way it was supposed to. It's important to realise that. You almost never remember things that were supposed to happen. A year later, or three years, or at the end of your life, you only remember things that didn't go the way they were supposed to, for better or for worse. That's why... that's why I remember...

An empty glass and paper are usually all it takes to secure most creatures in the house that shouldn't be there, but most of them weren't this fast. Finally mom brought the cup down and caught the lizard. It had to be fast, and hard, or the lizard would run away. It was so fast...

We didn't notice it at first. Mom didn't, anyway. But its head... under the rim of the cup... she brought it down so hard and fast. And the lizard had tried to run away... and its head...

No. No. Oh, God, no, no, no... and I was praying, not cursing. No. God, no. Dead... crushed. Its head crushed... oh, my God, no... please no.

I told myself it was still alive and I think for a moment I almost believed it... But I could feel my throat going numb and hollow, and my heart thumping dully, and I knew. Mom said she was sorry... she was sad, too. We both knew it shouldn't have happened. Death... the first and greatest mistake of humanity, one of the things that's not supposed to be here. That's what I realised that night, and that's why that night will stay with me until I die the way the lizard did. The way we all will.

We took the lizard outside, and I don't remember if I cried.