1. Headlights glowed like cigarette ends in the twilight
2. As soon as they winked out in the warm, weedy field, and the harsh engine noise snapped into silence, I began to cry.
3. Father stepped quietly towards me and I sniffed as I smelled the earth I was digging, the sweat I was dripping, the carcasses I was covering.
4. Beneath the distant moon Father paused, watching me sift dirt over the remains of two limp goldfish.
5. The morbid scene glittered as moonlight sparkled off my tears and the half-buried scaled.
6. A small tribute to their salty home.
7. As if on cue, the wind ruffled the tops of the grain in the neighboring unshorn field; the undulating stalks mimicked the ocean.
8. Their grave remains unmarked.
Written for Creative Writing class in 2008, the exercise was called Syntactic Gymnastics.