The Crocotta, part four

Jesus Christ, what a day this has been. Fired, thats an ugly word that they try to cover up with 'laid off,' I guess they think any term with laid in it is going to sound better. Ten years working for a man I shared a room with in the clinic getting clean, ten years of blood and sweat and tears in the local city parks and recreation departments. I shoveled snow in the winters, planted flowers in the spring,  mowed lawns in the summer, raked leaves in the fall and picked up trash year round. Even now I'm looking around as the clouds break, a pale starlight cast on the ground so I can spot the trash in the woods, broken bottles and scraps of cloth; but its not my problem anymore, I've just gotta remember that.

"Help me..."

Good 'ol Chuck, he always looked out for me, always paying me back for that help in the clinic. Never saw it coming when he kicked the bucket last Tuesday, poor 'ol Chuck. Heart attacks are pretty cut and dry, no mystery there about what did him. Everything would have been fine if that prick hadn't taken over Chuck's job, fucking Tommy. Thats twice he screwed me over in a lifetime, twice too many. Fresh out of the job corps and with a clean slate, Tommy swings in and takes Chuck's job from me, the job I was right in line for, the only thing Chuck left me to remember him by and its in the hands of some drug dealing, pill popping sadist. Two times too many he screwed me, but the third times the charm; that third time that comes in the form of a medium sized pink piece of paper. I'm so mad about it that I don't pay attention to whats in front of me, I didn't even know that I was still walking until I tripped over my own two feet, face first into the mud. Jesus Christ, what I day this has been. I look down and see my foot tangled up in some roots in the ground, some white roots that I pull at with my foot. The root is pulled out and kicked right up beside me, and I see that its not a root; Jesus Christ.

"Help me..."

I can't believe what I'm looking at and now I start praying that is isn't what it is. I try looking at it a different way; try to think its a weird rock, try to think its some kind of bark stripped branch. But theres no way its anything but what it is, no way its not something straight out of my old x-rays, a smaller version of my own human femur. I turn around, pick it up, and turn it over, feeling every indent and imperfection; has to be deterioration, couldn't possibly be teeth marks, thats just too disgusting to think of. I almost throw up while looking at it, and then actually throw up when I realize that at this size, it has to be from a child, maybe eight or nine years old.

"Help me..."

I wipe the excess drool and bile from my mouth and look up into the distance, where I know the sounds are coming from now; never thought about how each call for help has been exactly the same. Are those really calls for help, or are they just echoes... Its too late to not find out.