As a boy, I went target shooting with an older friend who owned a .22 rilfle. We went to the town dump to plink cans and bottles. I shot at a bird perched on a limb. The bird dropped, mechanically, like one of those two-dimensional bears in an old-timey carnival arcade. I experienced a momentary rush, until I approached the lifeless creature and witnessed the ugly, bloody finality of my senseless act.