They walked up to the starting point , not thinking what may lay ahead, and in that they found half the wonder. Something tugged a twig this way and that; a branch was tossed aside with the calloused attention of a catatonic addict seeking out the perfection of their cause. Both children seemed to be groped and grasped by what would lay ahead of the immediate; what was now.

They looked at each other in order to figure out the atrocity to be had. One pulled a knife. One laughed and thought about how many guns there were in the World, and for a minute he had a thought of conscience. It was quickly disbanded by the thoughts of Baby Einstein and it’s projected images of Ravel.

The raccoon lay there like dead raccoons do. A thought of dancing beings rectified in the sounds of the cello and all of it’s magnificent 37 sounds. The boys stared at each other, not knowing what to do.

One reached into his pockets, deep, and pillaged out a piece of gum that had grown incestuously stuck to a piece of foil that enveloped the confection. He offered half of the stick to the other boy.

The other boy wiped his palms of sweat against his thighs and wished that red and white checkerboard images were not his fate. He stood up tall, and out of respect , accepted the stick of chewing delight with a verve and vigor that may not be found in the youth of today.

Both looked at each other with a desperation that was indescribable for such children. Loneliness is not comprehendible for youth; it is not a kid’s game. Only grown-ups find themselves masticated by such overtly trivial folly - existence is such a troubled game.

The snow creeped up onto the edges of both of their shoe soles in some unexplainable paternal way; protective, coddling, cuddling. Each crisp little flake, stacked so right, gripped and held them in place as they looked at the fallen raccoon holding it’s ground in death and stillness. Their exhales like the bulls of Pamplona; their grimaces like the victims.

The eyes, like glass, had nothing to say. Still. Done. Poke, poke; stick, stick. Both boys giggled and the dark haired one stuck his gum out on his tongue and quickly drew it back in toward his uvula like a glove to a bag during the “Thrilla’ in Manilla”. One of them yodeled to see if the sound would reflect back off the gilded pines in just the right fashion to create arousal in the fallen beast at hand.

The lighter haired boy dug deep into the pockets of a pair of corduroys worn far too tight that his Mother insisted still “fit just right in all the right places“. When his Mother would say that, it would make him feel uneasy; uneasy like drinking a milkshake made of spoiled milk. He scratched his balls in all the ways that balls want to be scratched; he knew - he read the tomb of ball scratching, “Scratch Them Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace”. He told his companion such and the both of them giggled in their girlish tones. When both of them talked or laughed or any other verbal exchange, it sounded like two ten year old girls who had been smoking Pall Malls for a couple of years; Muppets who had sucked down balloons of nitrous and helium mixed together in one fell shot. Suck, suck, suck …

The raccoon stayed still as if beaten down by a women dressed in leather in a London loft listening to Lydon and the lawless ruffians found within the cortex of spray paint, dog food, and fallen aristocracy. Obviously the snow and cold (and a Green Bay team from before the Super Bowls we all know) held the attention of the coon, much like the Ritalin addled Sponge Bob consumerism of the siblings left at home whom may have not dealt with mammal corpses in such a sedate and sound manner as the light and dark haired boys chewing gum and ball scratching did.

The claws of the beast were focused and prismed like a twenty-sided dice focusing on the future of a Fighter of some class level with an armor modification of some magical result. Both boys really didn’t know what to do beyond the focus on aspects of fortitude, resilience, that could still resemble life, strength. During one day not so long ago, the beast function scavenged, killed, consumed. Jaws hung heavy consumed with the awe.

The gum tipped tongues began to flicker once again, this time out of arrogance. Meat hung deep in the jowls of Death and the snow didn’t melt any quicker on the heels of youth. Reddened were the cheeks of boys staring down the gun of desensitized rigor mortise. It was more folly of find than memorial of mortality.

The dark haired demon, with locks a blowin’ in the frigid freeze, checked the state of his ass with his left hand and picked his nose (in some sort of residual disrespect to a creature he never once known) with his right; both diggings were out of animosity towards a creature that never even dreamt of parental trash receptacles. One finger (dug far too deep) was left smelling like feces; one nostril was blocked with a finger hunting ammunition to shoot at the farer of the two hooligans of high jinx and boredom’s reign. Tight and called out right - boredom knows a bitch (and a stinky pinky) better than any of those Piccadilly whores.

With that thought, the fare haired boy used the raccoon as a hat. He picked that stick rotting frozen corpse up, and tilted it up just so against his hair line in order to compliment his forehead. After doing so with a fervor addled twist of gala, his balls were adjusted once again (due to a fancy or a pre-occupation of dealing with Hustler magazine and a step-father figure) and he smiled humming some sort of palsy ridden version of Davey Crocket.

Some where in a basement deep in Greenwich Village, Bob Dylan and The Band twinkled the tinkle; just the right way that you would, and could, not tell which was which, and this made the boy’s chest puff out like a gay porn bitch snapping poppers with a heavy dose of blow in the anus. Lou Reed stopped and turned and the rest of the Velvet Underground still hated him, but the raccoon didn’t care either way because it was dead; it was dead indeed- dead as a hat; dead as the hat that it had become.

It is worth mentioning at this point that the 'Underground' may be velvet, but the rotting animal corpse was the furthest thing from velvet.

The beast then found ground and the ground found the beast.

The stick poked deep into the grey dusty flesh of the snow ridden beast. Death rose up through the souls of the boys and they nodded back and forth to each other. The cold embraced them. They needed to move but were stuck in their fodder. The Styrofoam crush of their footing comforted the minutes leading up to now.

Each of them spat their gum to the crystalline floor of frigid ferocity. The bandit grinned.

They now knew death.

The box would be easy with it’s introduction.

The ground would be kind with it’s instruction.