The End of FUN Read Online Free PDF Page A

them.”
    My grandpa sent me off after the birds, and looking back on it now I have to question the wisdom of sending a 10-year-old—who had recently attempted suicide—alone into the brush with a loaded shotgun and a pocket full of shells. Talk about trust. But the truth is by that point I wasn’t interested in ending my life—or the life of any birds, either. Clouds were gathering for a thunderstorm, and the air had that kind of jumpy feel to it, like anything could happen.
    I ended up on the other side of the train tracks, in the hills beyond the property. The road led to this desert junk dump, the centerpiece of which was an ancient, rusted-out car with tail fins and round holes where the headlights used to be. Just a metal shell. Doors spattered with bullet holes. Broken glass everywhere. Like the aftermath of some terrible last stand. Perfect for target practice.
    BLAM!
, reload,
BLAM!
, reload,
BLAM!
—I painted it in wide sprays of birdshot, adding my signature to the rest. But then, as I was aiming at a rust spot on the fender, something caught my eye.
    There was this bird. This little bird. Off to the side, perched on top of a sagebrush. Not a starling or a blackbird—something else. Like a sparrow maybe—but yellow. This little yellow bird, chirping its song into the afternoon. YAY! for the little yellow bird. Next thing I knew, I was looking at it down the barrel of the shotgun. I held it in my sights. Tiny yellow body hovering at the end of my barrel.
    And then, I couldn’t tell you why, I pulled the trigger.
    (
BLAM!
)
    When I opened my eyes, the bird had disappeared like some kind of magic trick. I walked over to where it had been. And then I saw it. Yellow fluttering in the brush. I’d winged it. I chased after the bird. What was I gonna do if I caught it? How, in the middle of the desert with only a shotgun and a pocket full of shells, do you repair a broken wing? It didn’t matter. Every time I got close, the bird flopped just out of reach, throwing itself around like it was on fire.
    And then the bird gave up. It just stopped and sat there on the ground. I walked up to it. It didn’t move. It just sat there, looking up at me with a single dark eye. It was breathing real fast.
    I looked down at the bird.
    The bird looked up at me.
    And it’s hard to explain, but for a moment I was right there with the bird, lost in that dark tunnel between us…and it was just—darkness. Terrifying. The bird was dying. It was headed to the other side, and it knew it, and I knew it, too. I began to feel like if I looked at it any longer, that bird was going to reach out with its eye and pull me into the darkness, through the window of a bird’s eye into the world of the dead.
    And that’s why I ran. That, and it was really starting to rain. Just pouring down from the sky. I turned around and booked it.
    Grandpa was waiting for me on the porch.
    â€œYou got soaked,” he said.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œHow much I owe you?”
    â€œNothing.”
    He eyed me, kind of curious, like he was trying to figure me out. “Where’s the gun?”
    Right. In my terror I’d completely forgotten about it.
    That’s when he looked at me like I was the stupidest person ever to walk the earth.
    â€œNever leave a shotgun out in the rain,” he said.
    So back I went.
    Already the storm was starting to pass. The sun had dropped below the clouds, and every sagebrush cast a long shadow, and it was beautiful, but all I could think about was that little yellow bird lying out there in the rain. It was nearly dark when I finally located the gun. As for the bird—I didn’t see it anywhere. Not in the brush, not on the ground, not anywhere.
    That bird was just gone.

The train pulled into Antello a half hour early—a first for Amtrak in my experience. I was the only one who got off, and the station was empty. Not really a station. More like a bus