The short story “Just like that” from 1987 is written by Michael Richards and is part of a book of short stories called “Writings from Australia”, which is also written by him.
In the story, we follow two people.
One is a youthful boy, who wants to become a man, and to do so he looks up to the man he’s with. He doesn’t like killing the kangaroos but does it because he’s told to by the man
Along him is a man, presumably his father, who is cold, hard and to-the-point. He is shooting the kangaroos for fun, and with no purpose. He doesn’t speak emotionally to the boy, only telling him to shoot and follow him
They’re out in the outback of Australia, and it all happens in the same day, from midday to sunset. The man is teaching the boy to shoot kangaroos with a rifle, first shooting a few himself before making the boy shoot. After that, they take turns shooting into a flock of kangaroos. The boy at first feels nothing of it, until he shoots his last kangaroo of the day, where he begins crying and falls to his knees. He then stands up, picks up his rifle, and points it over the mans head, and feels nothing.
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