Idiot Tax

The Idiot Tax collector stumbles from door to door, shaking his burlap sack and shouting at the top of his lungs.
Four in the morning. He always comes at four.
I watch a door open and a broken toaster fly out.
He catches it, grunts, and shambles off to the next house.
It’s against the law to kill an Idiot Tax collector. Even by accident.
My rusty butcher’s knife is in his chest.
“I tried to hand it to him,” I say. “Honest.”
I cry. I whine. I babble incoherently.
I, the new Idiot, pick up the sack and howl.