Sorry

Stolen from Kate Beaton:

"Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view."

Part IV

In the years after I was told that we were not able to return my brother, I made several attempts to take him out of the picture using slightly more fratricidal methods. One of these dramatic scenes took place at a departmental picnic my family was attending. The adults were eating and having conversation around a couple of picnic tables. A short distance away, a few baby-grub things, including my brother, were crawling around in the grass. I was standing by myself, in awe of one of the most awesome objects I had ever laid eyes on.

It was a green and yellow tractor. I believe it was used as a maintenance vehicle for the institute. The tractor was well worn and had body rust, but was definitely in fair working condition. Larger than a lawn tractor, but smaller than your standard farm tractor, it was one of the more impressive tractors I had ever seen this close up. It was also unattended.

It was an open invitation, and I accepted it. I was positively delighted to be sitting in the tractor seat, bouncing up and down and gripping the steering wheel. What's more, none of the adults seemed to notice or care. I was having a ball. Then I glimpsed the Best Thing.

The key was in the ignition. At two years old, I knew about some important things. One of these things was that if you wanted to make a car (or a tractor) go, you needed to turn the key. This was probably on of the better moments in my life up to this point (especially considering that many of the other moments in my life involved trying to fit myself into my duplo barn; these were not good moments). I leaned forward, one hand on the steering wheel, and grasped the key.

The tractor had been left in gear, when I turned the key it immediately started rolling forward. Nice. I was moving forward at around two miles per hour, maybe about half as fast as walking speed. Directly in from of me, probably ten feet away, grub-brother was drooling on the grass. This was my chance. Ramming speed! my beautiful tractor.

Unfortunately for my plans, my mother noticed this chain of events almost immediately after I turned the key. She let out a scream, dashed towards the grubblet and scooped him up, out of harm's way.

Foiled.