We came in this world together. Legs wrapped round each other. My cheek against my sister's, we were born like tangled vine. We lived along the river where the black clouds never lingered. The sunlight spread like honey in my sister's tiny hands. But, while picking sour apples in the wild waving grasses, sister stumbled in a briar and was bitten by a snake. Every creature casts a shadow under the sun's golden finger, but when the sun sinks past the waving grass, some shadows are dragged along. Alone, I took to drinking bottles of cheap whiskey and staggering through the back woods killing snakes with a sharpened stick. But, still I heard her laughing in those wild, waving grasses. Still her tiny hands went splashing at the river's sparkling shore. So, I took my rusty gas can and an old iron shovel. I set the woods to burning and choked the river up with stones.