We the Animals

by Justin Torres

“I used to believe we could escape,” he whispered. “I had it all figured out—like when we were in the field today, I was sure that God would grab hold of those kites and lift us up, protect us.” He took my chin and turned my face toward his. “But now I know,” he said, “God’s scattered all the clean among the dirty. You and me and Joel, we’re nothing more than a fistful of seed that God tossed into the mud and horseshit. We’re on our own.” He wrapped one arm and one leg around me and was silent and still for a stretch of time, and I drifted into sleep. After a while Manny started up again, talking to himself, plotting, saying, “What we gotta do is, we gotta figure out a way to reverse gravity, so that we all fall upward, through the clouds and sky, all the way to heaven,” and as he said the words, the picture formed in my mind: my brothers and me, flailing our arms, rising, the world telescoping away, falling up past the stars, through space and blackness, floating upward, until we were safe as seed wrapped up in the fist of God.