TOO SMALL

The hand that pulled me from the rot was not wearing a glove. It didn’t have the calloused discipline of Miller or the oily slickness of the assailant. It was soft, curious, and a little clumsy.

“Whoa,” a voice whispered. “Look Jack!”

His hands were small. Too small.

This hand was sticky with sugar and stained with dirt from a sandbox. The “blue blood” on my slide had turned into a stubborn crust. 

The boy was no older than eleven. I think.

He didn’t examine me or caress me for flaws. He didn't look for a serial number. He wiped a smear of rotted fruit from my barrel with the hem of his shirt, unaware he was smearing Miller along with it.

“Is it real?” Jack asked, leaning over the rim of the dumpster.

“It’s heavy, I guess,” the boy said, his fingers fumbling over my grip. “But it doesn’t feel…right.”

There was that word again. Right.

The boy tucked me into the waistband of his oversized cargo shorts. I felt the heat of his skin, a sharp contrast to the cold gutter. He didn't have a pocket so I sat loose and tilted, pressing against his small hip bone.

I had a new label now. I wasn’t an “improvement” or “Disposable”.

I was a Secret.

He ran back toward a row of dilapidated apartments, his heart racing with the thrill of a secret. I felt the frantic, shallow beat of his pulse—it was different from the steady thrum of the adults who had held me. It was the rhythm of a bird in a cage. Searching for freedom.

He meant no harm. I could tell.

The boy’s name was Leo. He lived in a room where the wallpaper was peeling like sunburned skin and the only constant light came from a television with a cracked screen.

On the edge of a bed with unwashed sheets, Leo pulled me out and held me with two hands, his finger instinctively finding a groove in my shape. I was still tight, but I felt a new kind of uncertainty. Like I could snap at any moment.

He pointed me at the door.

"Bang," he whispered. "Bang, bang."

He didn't know I was a machine that had tasted blood. He didn't know my parts were designed for a different function than he pretended. He didn't know I was made to be held firmly—so firmly that even a child might misuse me. I was made right, but in these hands, "right" felt like the most vulnerable thing I could be.

I was tucked beneath his pillow, resting on a bedspread that smelled of food stains. Leo sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes reflected in the glass of the TV.

".....the search continues for the suspects responsible for the killing of Officer Miller Barnes," the news anchor said. Her voice was smooth, rehearsed. “Three days ago, the department’s Captain stated they would start an investigation into the gangs in the districts….”

Click

The screen flickered. The somber face of the anchor lady was replaced by a bright blue-coloured cat chasing a small mouse across the city. High-pitched whistles and cartoon noises filled the room. Leo laughed as the mouse dropped a piano on the cat’s head.

He didn’t care about the news of the dead man, or the fact that he had the dead man’s partner beneath his pillow. Of course not, why would he? He was a child after all.

Life with Leo was fun.

We played all sorts of games. He would pull me out and imagine different scenarios, aiming me at posters on the wall, at the television set, and at the mirror.

“Raise those hands up, I say,” he commanded his reflection. “No funny business now. I am Commander Ace, and I am putting you under arrest.”

He never once checked my chamber; he didn’t know how, which was worrying. Something about Leo made me want to protect him from everything, including me. Human children were supposed to have supervision, similar to a Seargeant with an officer but more nurturing. The Matriarch or mother, as commonly known, was supposed to keep their children from picking up trash and secrets. Where was this child’s mother? How far gone was she? When would she be back?

The inevitable happened on a Tuesday. The excitement of a secret was too much for a seven-year-old to bear alone. He had to share. He wrapped me carefully in a sock and placed me at the bottom of his worn-out backpack, under homework sheets and a deflated dodgeball.

The rhythm of his steps changed as he walked to school. He fidgeted. The straps of the bag dug into his small shoulders, less from my weight and more from the weight of his anticipation.

At recess, the chaos of the playground swirled around him until he found the right audience: two friends near the rusted jungle gym.

"Hey, you guys wanna see something cool?" Leo asked, his voice cracking with excitement.

They huddled under the shade of the structure, away from the watchful eyes of the teachers. He unzipped his backpack, fumbling with the contents before pulling me out, the afternoon sun glinting off the metal of my slide. The warmth of the sun was a strange, almost rejuvenating feeling.

“Wait, isn’t that the same one we found at the dumpster?” Jack asked.

“They don’t know that,” Leo whispered. “shhh.”

Word spread and soon other children were surrounding us, all curious to see what I could do.

“Check it out,” one of them said. “Leo here brought his favourite toy.”

“Whoa, is that real?” another asked, reaching out a hesitant hand.

“I doubt it. It’s probably a fake.”

"No way, my dad's an officer," Leo lied, his chest puffing out. "It's real. Look how heavy it is."

He held me out, the barrel pointing haphazardly at the ground.

"It even clicks," Leo said, misunderstanding the mechanism. He put his finger inside my guard, right where a more experienced finger had once rested and aimed.

“Bang, bang,” he said smiling.

I was passed around the other children after that, all testifying to my rightness. Then the world slowed down. The shouting of children giggling faded. Suddenly, a teacher's voice cut through the air.

"Hey! What do you have there?"

Leo turned, grabbing me from Jack. The teacher quickly approached, her face a mixture of concern and alarm. She reached firmly to take me from his hand. Leo panicked.

In his world, a teacher’s scream meant trouble, and trouble meant he had to hide. He tried to shove me back into the backpack, to make the problem disappear. To protect his secret. His small, sweaty finger was still hooked inside the guard, tangled in the fabric of his bag and the sudden, jerky movements of his own fear.

“It’s okay, it’s not even real,” Leo said stepping back.

Crack.

Silence followed for a heartbeat.

Leo let go of me. I had fulfilled my function.

Then came the screaming.

Leo, the other children, the other teachers. Hearts were beating, feet were jumping. Everybody got down.

And blood was everywhere on the sand, on Leo’s shirt and pooling from the body twitching on the ground. The school went into a "Lockdown." Metal doors slammed. And familiar Sirens returned wailing with urgency.

They arrived in swarms, hoping they were not late. They looked at me with horror, then at Leo, who was sobbing and covered in someone else's life.

Yellow papers with numbers surrounded me along with the technicians who were taking photos of me from multiple angles. They traced the outline of my position noting the distance and orientation. Hands with gloves picked me up and removed my magazine then cleared the chamber before being packaged safely.

"Weapon secured," one of them barked into his shoulder mic. "It’s a 9mm. Looks like a service model. We’ll need to confirm the serial though."

He didn’t see an improvement. He didn’t see a disposable. He didn’t see a secret. He saw the evidence of the chaos I had unleashed.

I was placed inside a cardboard box, held in place with plastic zip-ties threaded through holes in the box. Then a label was attached to the exterior. It read:

CASE # 2026-CR-00891: EVIDENCE