Daughter stuck her arm down a stoat hole. I told her: Honey, that thing’ll bite.

It bit. 

Me and the son and the daughter watched my wife Mabel drive off in the Model Z. 

What now, Pa? Daughter asked. Son barked like a seal. 

Survive, I told ’em. Your ma’s gone. It’s just us three. Here on the farm.

Raise us, Father, they said. Give us your wisdom.

Not now. I was busy. Had stuff to do. So I spent a year in the basement fixing the radio. Came out, and the kids had et up the furniture. I burned the calendar, boiled up a bucket of thunder beans. 

Cruel father, neighbor said. 

Hey, stow it, pal. I live like I live. I do what I do. Kids are tough. They’ll get by.

They need you, the busybody said. Children need a father.

Hell they do, I told him. Hell, I didn’t need a father. It was the Depression. I was raised by a bale of cattle wire.

Neighbor stomped off, shaking head.

I went into the root cellar. Took me three months to find roots. Came out. Where are them kids?

The kids had got in a stranger's car. They came back a week later with different faces on.

Smoke rose from the hills. I nailed the barn shut for the last time.

I live like I live. I do what I do. 

I gave Son the old family flintlock. Learn to murder, boy. Son shot a bird. I said good shootin’. Then he shot a deer. Also good. Then he shot three okapi, a steenbok and a Hidalgo. Corpses piled round him. Good killin’ my son. But boy those things stink.

Soil around here’s made of tire shreds. Cow died when I fed her on dirt. Pig put a hat on, sleeps in my bed. 

Daughter gushing tears. I told her: Boys will be boys, and they’ll be other things too. 

What's wrong with that girl? Every time I see her now she got her face on inside out. And that boy! Down cellar with the rats. Playin’ with rats. Why you playin’ with them dirty-ass rats?

I like rats, Pa.

The rats, they get me, Pa. No one else gets me. 

I got too much to do to look after kids. Kids in my way. I took both of ‘em deep out in the woods.

How we gonna get home, Pa? How we gonna survive?

Figure it out, kids. Find a gingerbread house, or whatever. I left ‘em there.

But they found their way back. Daughter cut her heart into bits, dropped ‘em to leave a trail. Son came out with a bobcat stuck to his head, talking squirrel jabber.

Ma’s face showed up in the mirror one midnight, twisted like a dust devil of pain. I busted the glass with a brick. 

Son stood in the doorway. Was that Ma? What did she want?

She wanted you. Too bad, cause she’s gone. Now go to sleep. Stop makin’ that sound like a bucket pourin’ out.

I do what I gotta do. I stove in the shed. Killed the bees by the old stone cote. Poisoned the frogs that sang in the well. 

Kids got taller. Don’t know how they did it. No idea what they eat. I see Son on the roof.

Singing, or something. Daughter sleeps for months at a time, maybe years.

Barn leans further south every season. Cows got out, stampeded down the old dirt road. I hear they got jobs in town.

Daughter took a possum for a pet. I told her: Honey, that thing’s gonna die. She said: Me too, Pa. 

This old tractor won’t run. I took apart the fuel pump. Then the sprocket box. Then the spindle, the harrow, the bobbin, the tines, the music shaft, and the loom. Now it rolls backwards, sounds like clowns laughing, and the beans lie dead in the field.

A blind black horse came looking for Daughter. Thing scared her with its milk-dead eyes.

Girl hid in her room. I made her come down, act nice to it. She trembled when it stared at her. That horse kept coming, kept staring. One day, the girl gave in. Climbed on its back. Looked at me over her shoulder, eyes all wet. Then it tore off and took her away.

Son in the cellar with the rats. Rats all gathered ‘round. Son wears crown made of rat teeth.

Then all them rats swarm down a hole, and Son goes with ‘em.

How long they all been gone? Can't tell.

I spilled loose screws. Took twenty years to sort ‘em into cans.

Been meaning to fix that busted window. It let winter in, now winter never leaves.