andrew priest | eleven | cb

one

They say he smiles like a guillotine, that he sings like a nightingale, that if ever there was a cliff's edge he could not teeter upon, he would die trying. People closest to death are usually the only ones stupid enough to laugh at it, but Andrew Priest has never feared the end, because it is justified by the means.

two

Papa was a sick man, but physically fine. One day, Momma got tired of hiding the bruises and she did something big, something she didn't know Andrew witnessed. They say he fled the Priest place and even the District; someone claims they saw him near the fence with some poor young thing, but Andrew knew the truth and, for everyone who asked his mother what the secret to her prized peaches was, he knew the real answer. Sometimes, when he felt sentimental, he'd sit under that tree and think about his childhood. But Momma would get this look sometimes. Fear, or anger, or maybe both. When she got that look, Andrew always considered chopping the tree down, letting whatever parts of his father that lived die one last time.

three

They say he smiles like a guillotine and it's true: he knows the black cloak of death. He saw it draped over his father that night and he vowed to never be afraid of it. It would come regardless, that blade hovering above him. He wanted to die with a grin so it could never say it took him, but instead say that he went with it as an equal.