Casey's eyes lingered on the dark stoneware pan with its sizzling contents. The egg spattered flecks of piercing grease on his bare flesh, but it went unnoticed. He was unaware of evenything except the dreadful sound of the yolk endlessly cooking and spreading across the pan. Yes, it did seem endless, just as the previous hours when Casey had heard that same sizzling sound of death.

Standing in his kitchen, a place of various kitchen appliances and abstract works of art, Casey dwelled on his night's experience, his sinful deed. Silence draped over his soul like a soggy woolen blanket. He was a man who placed the wonders of life on a high pedestal. He wondered why he had let himself be so careless.

With a sudden urge of irresistible anger, Casey broke loose from that blanket of wool that bound his enraged sounds of frustration. In one wild sweep of what seemed to be an involuntary movement, he clung to his spinning head, which was sweaty and reddened. The uneven gasps of breath which escaped from his mouth seemed to form a wall, enclosing him from reality. The fuchsia china pig, balancing on a thin shelf above the stove, plummeted to the floor when Casey threw a small onion at its taunting face. Fragments of the once whole ornament lay scattered on the cold floor.

"There!" shouted Casey. "There! There! There! That's me! That's how I feel!" With frustration and anger gushing out of him, Casey fell to the floor with only his tears to accompany him.

Although horror clung to his side the entire time, Casey began to relive the dark hours of his journey home from his orthodontist appointment. He had been repetitively humming one of his favorite tunes as the road continued to stretch before him.The green and blue directional signs were only blobs of color as Casey stared on ahead. When an object darted in front of his car, his eyes immediately returned to the surroundings before him. Gripping the wheel, he swerved his car with the force of an angry grizzly bear protecting her young. Only a thump-thunk from the rear tires informed him that his efforts had failed.

Spontaneously, Casey flung the door open and lurched out of the car. Reaching the rear of his vehicle, he stooped to inspect the damage. Almost immediately he flinched and he couldn't help but to turn his head away.

"Oh God. Please God no!" wailed Casey, as he stood along the yellow line of the deserted South Dakota highway. A good deal of time passed before he ventured back to his car door, only a couple of feet away. Avoiding the spilled blood and the cold, lifeless eyes of the victim, Casey drove away. He and his car, the murderer and the partner in crime, left the scene.

Now, sprawled face down on the non-responsive tiles, Casey's thoughts encircled around one single vision. Still on the highway it remained: dead was that squirrel on the highway. 1