Grant Kittrell
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Would You Rather
Would you rather kill one cow or thirty chickens? Molly Jean asked. I’d
rather kill a cow, I said. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a cow appeared. Molly
Jean said, alright then, do it. And I said, but Molly Jean, preferring one
possible action over the other doesn’t logically necessitate the desire or
the obligation to act on that preference. Molly Jean said, that is true, but
the world is not a logical place. And I said, sure it is, and then she asked
me why the cow was standing in my living room and I said I don’t know
and I said, I guess you’re right. She pointed to the cow, raised her
eyebrows and said, now kill it! I said, okay, okay, I’ll kill the cow—what do
I kill it with? Anything but a gun, she said, you have to slash its throat. I
said, I will not slash its throat and have blood all over the place! Molly
Jean raised her eyebrows again and I took the knife that appeared in my
hand and steadied it for the kill. In a swift and forceful motion, I tore a
hole in the cow’s throat and closed my eyes, scared to see what I had
done. When I opened them, the cow was still standing where it had been
before. It didn’t fall, it didn’t move at all. Inspecting the wound, I noticed
there was cotton hanging from the cow’s severed neck and I thought, this
does not make sense at all. I looked over at Molly Jean and she raised
her eyebrows and asked, would you rather be a woman for a year or win
10,000 dollars? I said, I’d rather be a woman, and she raised her
eyebrows again.
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Grant Kittrell was born and raised in Fernandina Beach, Florida. He is currently a second-year MFA candidate at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, and a poetry editor for The Hollins Critic. His work has most recently appeared in Magma Poetry and Barely South Review.