Killing Part 2

My son's class chatted about 'machines' the other day. The picture above is the machine he invented. I asked him what the machine did and he told me it was a Squashing Machine. Oh, I said and what does it squash. People, he said, it squashes people until they're dead.

Killing

Last week I asked my eldest son what he had done at his best friend’s house.

Killing
He said.
My brow furrowed.
We killed each other.

That was the last I heard before I swooned to the floor and had to be revived with smelling salts.
He has talked a lot about death recently, well actually that’s not true he has talked a lot about killing. Mainly killing me or his mum or his friends but always the constant is the killing.

We’ve just moved house and he found a box that had an old Star Wars electronic battleships game that he has become obsessed with. It features some tinny recordings from the movie to accompany the action on the battle zone. So now the soundtrack of his childhood consists of the sound of explosions, followed by the sound of him shouting, “got him. I killed him”, followed by Darth Vader saying ‘impressive’ as if he’s grooming him to become a bad Jedi.

After I played battleships with him the other day he was in tears at the end because I wouldn’t tell him who gets killed in the film. I said we’d watch it together one day and didn’t want to spoil it.

Oh please tell me who gets killed, Daddy
Erm, well, I can’t really remember.
Oh please Daddy. Oh please Daddy
Oh well, erm there are casualties on both sides.
Oh please Daddy, please Daddy, who gets killed Daddy x 10000

I can remember seeing a documentary about American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer a few years ago where they interviewed the people who knew him in his early life. Remember kids, no good ever comes from spelling Geoffrey with a ‘J’. Apparently Jeffers showed a propensity for death at a young age by killing a lot of animals and then burying them in his garden. Those that spoke of this were quick to point out that in retrospect they should have recognised this behaviour as an early warning signal for his future killings.

Now I know that a ton of kids go through the ‘killing’ stage but every time he asks me about death, all I can think is that in some courtroom in the future I’m going to tell this story and some flashy, punk-ass lawyer will ask me why I never saw the signs.

On the other hand he is also obsessed with the musical Hello Dolly!

Oh dear god no!