The Torturer’s Tale

The school sent my daughter home for bullying her classmate. Later she told me she likes to squirt vinegar into our cat’s eye. She said this like it was the most natural thing in the world. Didn’t you do things like that when you were a kid? she asked me. So awful. They give you a manual for inflicting pain, but not for raising your kid. I told her I would think about her punishment. Next day, I tortured a man who pleaded for his life. Said he had a daughter. That means nothing, I said. We all have daughters.