That Was My Watershed Moment

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My elder brother had bought me an airgun.At that time I was in my early teens.My elder brother was a good shooter himself.I was one of his admirers and had a desire to be a good shooter like him. I still remember the heart-tearing incident that changed me for good. One afternoon I saw a couple of sparrows chirping at a corner of our roof.Suddenly they started fighting with each other. ( it took me years to know they were not fighting.Instead,they were loving each other ) I took my airgun, very carefully went near the corner,aimed at the fighting ( or,loving ) birds and pressed the trigger. All hell broke loose in that narrow apace.The birds' chirping turned into cries,one of them fell down dead on the floor and the other flew away crying. It all happened in such an unexpected heart touching way that I shivered with fear and guilt and nervousness and ran away from that place.I even could not summon courage to go near the fallen sparrow and ensure if it was dead or only injured. A few minutes later I somehow managed to go near the bird.The sparrow was lying dead, blood oozing from its little,thin neck. I can't describe how I was feeling then.I had turned a happily chirping bird into a lifeless body. That was the watershed moment for me. That day on I never killed any bird or animal.