Killing Them with Kindness

By Tracey Winter Glover

Killing Them with Kindness recounts the life of Olly Albert, bleeding heart, pot-smoking, astro-physicist, whose Buddha like compassion leads him first to try to save the world, then to drop-out of it, and ultimately to try to destroy it. But does he have the heart?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracey Winter Glover
• Release date: Oct 14, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465718594

Tracey Winter Glover

Tracey Winter Glover earned her BA in History from the University of Michigan and went on to obtain a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. After 8 years of practicing law in Washington D.C., she came to her senses and fled in search of a more purposeful life. She spent two months in Northern India reclaiming her soul before landing on the Gulf Coast, where she has been writing, making films, caring for a whole lot of rescues dogs, cats and chickens, running an animal rights group, and trying to make the most of this short life we've been given.

Book preview

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KILLING THEM WITH KINDNESS

by

t.w. glover

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

t.w. glover on Smashwords

Copyright © 2017 by Tracey Winter Glover

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My dear friend Oliver Albert, Olly, could have been one of the great men of history, like Socrates, or the Buddha, Jesus Christ even, if I dare say it. But in the end, he just wasn’t strong enough. His sympathies, his sentimentalities, his attachments, rendered him weak, incapable of making the sorts of sacrifices the truly great men and women of history have made. The Buddha abandoned his family while his son was still a baby. Socrates wandered off leaving wife and children impoverished in order to hang out with the boys at the gymnasium in search of Truth. Jesus Christ renounced family life altogether. That’s just what it takes. Attachments, say all the world’s religions, all of history’s greatest leaders, attachments are what hold us back, what cause us pain and suffering, and what lead us to live small lives of illusion.

I don’t mean to say that Olly isn’t a good man. He is a very good man, a very kind man, one of the best men I’ve ever known. He just isn’t a great man, in the final analysis. And because you too are likely mired in your own attachments, you’ll probably thank God that Olly isn’t a greater man than he is.

Chapter 1

Olly had not been popular as a boy.  Besides being a junior chess champion and a science nerd, he was a sweet boy, which is not exactly the quality most likely to earn an adolescent boy the respect of his peers. One of the first tests of character that nearly all boys, though very few girls, face is when, with slingshot or bb gun in hand, the still innocent boy shoots and kills some small, defenseless animal.  However the boy reacts, whether with pride, remorse, or some complicated combination of the two, it is at this moment that he loses all innocence and becomes a moral actor.  Olly was with his neighbor, Andy Moore at this critical moment. Olly was 10 years old. Andy was two years his elder and tougher in every way. He taught Olly how to make the slingshot and then how to shoot at the pigeons that gathered in the alley behind the school. Olly was fascinated by the simple physics of the crude weapon and felt like a warrior stomping around with slingshot in hand.  Andy had always treated Olly like a little brother, one who was weaker and stupider and generally lamer in every way but tolerable because he obviously admired Andy. Of course Olly's IQ was seriously a solid 30-40 points higher than Andy's, but neither one of them realized yet that that mattered. Childhood is like a window into the state of nature, an uncivilized world without a social contract where might does indeed make right.

Olly followed Andy's lead, crouching low and pulling the rock back in the rubber band. Then Andy yelled Go! Andy's rock aborted course and fell about two feet in front of him, but Olly's rock flew directly as planned, thumping one of the flock of pigeons that was busily pecking the ground. The flock scattered and flew away, but the one Olly had hit remained.  

I got it! yelled Andy, triumphantly.

No, I think that was my rock, said Olly as he walked over to look at the motionless bird. She was not dead. She looked up at Olly, blinking her eyes, managed to flap one wing, and began moving in slow circles.

No way, man! I hit that bird! You didn't hit it! You wish you hit it! Andy protested as he stood looming over Olly, who was crouched down over the bird.

Olly blinked up at Andy, whose big head blotted out the sun behind him. Olly hated him. He lunged up and knocked Andy to the ground. But Andy was bigger and stronger and easily rolled Olly onto his back, punching him right in the nose. Olly didn't fight back. He looked over at the pigeon who had stopped moving now. They blinked at each other. Then the bird's eyes stopped moving. Olly let out a feeble cry, as tears began dropping one by one down the side of his gravelly face.

You baby. said Andy with disgust as he got up off of Olly. I knew you weren't man enough. And with that, he stormed off, feeling like Thor or Achilles or Hitler