The prey

 Standing in front of the house he grew up in brought a flood of memories attacking him all at once, so he slowly moved on. He only wanted to see the small three-room place he called home with his mom, dad, and twin sister one last time before the county knocked it down to make room for another cement city.. Decades ago, it stood in between a pine forest with a small stream running through the property, a perfect place to swim in the summer, skate in the winter and hunt in the autumn of the year. Eighty acres of beauty to be uprooted with the punishing blades and forks of the monster machines built for one thing and one thing only, destruction. Why the whole thing bothered him, he didn't know. It wasn't the happiest of homes, but that was the norm back then when fighting for food, work, and a sprig of happiness was all that mattered. Dad drank the food money, promising it was the last time, but it never was. His sister wore boys' clothes because he could hand them down to her as he grew too tall for them to fit. He told her one day he'd buy her a brand-new dress which he did in time. He turned to see the monster fire up, black smoke huffing and puffing, getting ready to charge an already dead prey. With every move, his house became a dust bowl of old timber and outdated appliances crushed into a cube to be taken to the scrap yard for a few dollars. What once was a place he slept and ate and called home was gone. Two dump trucks hauled the broken house to the dump, where it would rot until it became useful again and turned into mulch that would adorn someone's flower beds. Now he stood in front of nothing but his memories as the machines left on their way to another condemned house just a few tears away, where a man about his age stood watching the monster machines eat all his memories to the sounds of black puffing smoke and metal forks eating their prey.

MO