We Are All Murderers In Our Own Way

I had a dream last night. I was living in a town with swamps and marshes. The kind people like to go hunting in? You know that type. Everyone's clumping around in shin-high boots and checkered shirts and rolled-up cargos. Waiting to shoot some duck or buck or hornball next-door neighbour.

I worked at a place that had lots of animals. Like a vet's clinic, but not really. The animals were all big and healthy, vibrantly coloured, behind metal bars. One or two dogs in gold and red fur skulked around the busy floors, twining between legs and each other.

There was a problem with one of the animals, and I had to go and get the cure. So I went out with a knife in my hand, to the marshes. The reeds were tall and bright green at the tops. There was a commotion, and then I was grappling with a massive bird. I flipped it over and saw it was a swan, a huge grey-feathered creature. You must understand, in my dream the bird was magnificient. It was almost the same size as I was, and the feathers ranged from black at the edges of the wings, to dark speckled greys and browns throughout its powerful body.

The whole time, my only thought was to break its neck, because the neck was the cure, it seemed. I knelt on its back, and I could feel how strong it was, how alive. It struggled, and I felt sorry for slaying such a fantastic beast in the mud of some lousy pond. It was just me, and this swan; and for a moment I felt the enormity of taking this one animal life.
And then I sawed off its neck with my jagged-edged knife, and left the body in the brackish water.

I woke up, and I could still feel how alive the swan was before I killed it.