There once was a wee little sociopath named Don.

For whom throwing rocks at babies was lots of fun.

A flaxen-haired, round faced, nearly 5 year old boy in Queens was bored.

No longer contented by bullying his block building little brother Robert, who had minutes earlier run off sobbing and thumb sucking to seek refuge in the arms of the nanny who was undoubtedly being wildly underpaid while tending to some random housekeeping task she hadn’t been hired for in the sprawling 23 room building they called home.

Young Donald needed something to do.

Not army toys. Not spinning tops. Not hide-and-seek with his older siblings.

Boring.

And certainly not a game of catch with his dad.

You see, Dad, whose favorite children were named “power” and “money” would have laughed at the silly notion, but maybe, if he was very lucky, he would have patted him on the head before retiring to his office, while still laughing at the ridiculousness of the suggestion.

He needed something.

Something… fun.

He walked out to the garden, contemplated trying to start a small fire with some twigs he found, chased a wayward baby bunny into the hedges, attempted to pull the wings off many a butterfly, and finally let out a great big, frustrated sigh.

There was nothing to do.

Nothing… fun.

And just then he heard a sound coming from the other side of the fence. An awful sound. One which reminded him of his annoying little nuisance of a brother. Sounds his brother would make when he was a little younger… random, uninteresting, silly and stupid sounds, spitting sounds, burping sounds.

Sounds which inexplicably to him, seemed to be immensely entertaining to his mother, since Robert was the only one of the 5 children she ever paid attention to anymore. And that made young Don hate Robert all the more.

The sounds were coming from the neighbor’s garden. Baby sounds. Worse than that. HAPPY baby sounds.

And they angered him.

He slowly tiptoed over to the fence, and peaked through the slats. The neighbor’s son Dennis was in his playpen.