What am I doing to myself by reading this short story as a parent? Goodness, this is a heavy short story where a parent is faced with the ultimate hard decision. This story is not gory, it's not gross or violent or anything, it's just disturbing due to the subject matter and what the parent is forced to do. It certainly tugs at the emotions, and it's a story that's hard to digest but it was well-written and was able to pack a large amount of gravitas into a very short number of pages.