Flight School: Predator

With you, Myself

Iolani Tori was always thinking; every age of his was less than a number. While the boys in his village were climbing trees and playing soccer by the fields, he was staring at a burnt spot on the floorboard to the left of his bed—floating through his sea of thoughts that were at still and at peace, wondering if there was any purpose of his breathing and what would happen if he should stop since Ma had always told him that air was necessary for a human being to live but what exactly was living?

Snap, and he'd flow upwards. Against the current of his river, back up and return to a reality he wasn't so sure of. He had been looking at the burnt spot. Again.

Death was at the forefront of his mind at present time.

Moments ago, he had been reading through his textbook when a monstrously huge ant, black and shiny, fast on its legs, traveled across the elevated pages of his book as though it was a mountain to climb, an obstacle to be overcome along the way to its destination. Startled, the boy had released his grip on the edges of his book and a gust of wind blew on the pages as it flipped, increasing its momentum before closing the text entirely.

"Oh."

It was dead by the time Io re-opened his textbook. All that remained was a smudge of what appeared to him like brown ink, barely noticeable beside the word 'moment' and not too far away, a leg. Or was it a speck of eraser dust?

Io hadn't dared to disturb the scene of crime but was oddly fascinated by its very set up. The fact that the ant had been so stunningly huge paled in contrast to the tiny splatter of brown blood on page sixty-four of his hard-backed textbook.

Dead?

Already?

So fast. So fleeting.

It was fragile. That much, he knew but what more could he have known from that? What more could a six-year-old deduce from their first encounter with death, so mild and indirect?

For Io, everything.

The ant was dead. Right, it was taken away. Death had taken it away. What more does Death take? The pork from lats night came from a pig. The ham from this morning came from a pig. The pig died. We ate it. Pigs can die. Cows can die too, then. What else can die? In the first place, how did they die? Knife. Knives will cut...then, blood. I have blood too. There was one time I pricked myself on that cactus by Ma's window. There was blood. If knives cut me, there will be blood. If there is blood...then that means—

I can die.

Speaking of which, no one ever told me 'I'm going to die'. Will Ma ever say that to me?

'You're going to die, Io.'

One day, I will, right?

When?

Now?

I can die. I will die. I'm going to. One day, I will die.