Snapshot

A raindrop falls on paper and swells it like flesh around a fresh cat scratch.  Ink smears like tears of a toddler clutching the cheek now lined in angry red and painful pink.  He doesn’t get what happened, why the fluffy joybot turned into a killer machine, a fury of hissing, and growling, and shredding him to bits…  He lets go of the long tufts of tail hair still clutched in his tiny fist.  Tears flow freely.  Outside, on a freshly wet sidewalk fragrant with summer rain, an old bachelor, writer and artist clutches an ink-smeared notebook to his cold, dead cheek.