I worked on this scene last night and then edited it just now. Now I'm so sad for any child who has ever felt this way:

As he had grown and the important things of the narrow world around him had begun to show themselves, with earnest devotion he had tried to do the things that pleased his father. In the beginning he had gathered eggs from the hen house. But then one morning as he hurried back to the house, proud from from his accomplishment, his toe had caught the back stairs and his spindly legs had tangled. The basket had flown and all but two of the eggs had been wasted. After some time had passed his father had tolerated him in the milking shed as the men went about their work. Garrulous with his father's rare favor, he had hovered close by in a pathetic show of total devotion. A man had been at a stool, steadily massaging white ribbons of milk into a frothing bucket. His father had paused near the man. August, now six years old, had been standing beside the rump of the gentle cow who had chosen that same moment to lift her tail and void the vast contents of her bowels in a liquid, dropping rush. The sound had cut off August's chattering, and he had turned and viewed at close distance the full display. At the sight of it he had moved back sharply, but forgotten about the brimming bucket left on the ground behind him. He had tripped on it and fallen heavily to the ground. His father had turned to him quickly, and what might have been a moment of humor had turned instead to a lasting moment of fury. August's feet had knocked the bucket over, and its contents had rushed out in a white fan across the filthy ground. The milking man had seen it all, and he had heard the words that came from August's father that day. He had told others about them. He had never forgotten them. Dark, screaming words that had pierced the core of the little boy's soul like vicious poison barbs. And in the ghastly silence afterward, August's father had stomped off angrily, his heavy boots thudding on the hard ground. The milking man had glanced up at the little boy then, but had quickly looked away. It is hard for a person to look upon a child who's face holds the same lifeless expression of a tiny corpse laid out in a coffin. But with a child's corpse, the eyes are always closed. August's eyes had been open, and the expression in them had snatched the unspoken words of comfort from the man's lips. Few can watch the eyes of a child the moment they comprehend that the world will always be place where they feel trapped and don't want to be. A cruel and hostile place. A place that offers no glimmer of hope. A place where there never was, and where there will never be...love.