Burn the Child.

They told me to burn him. Sweep his ashes away. Forgive and forget all the aching in my head. They told me he was on the side of the broken. The deranged.

They told me to find him. They told me to burn away the devils and demons. There was certainly no place for something like that here. In this place where I grew up and no one seemed so terrible.

Never like him.

The burning thing. The one they told me to destroy. How strange his nature was, laughter behind his red rimmed eyes. Oh how the town would weep for him.

Oh how their cries rang. The ill they felt thinking of him.

But I couldn't do it. I could not burn the child.

I lay awake in my shoebox bedroom, thinking of him. Why did he have to be burned? Why not shot? Poisoned? Why the flames?

Most of my thoughts were like that. My mother and father told me I had no choice. I had to take away the sinful child. If I would not burn him to ash, my home would never be safe.

But how quickly I forgot.

The child still lives. He lives in me and comforts me. My parents think I am weak. They believe I have not the strength to burn the child.

But you see I did not want to rid myself of him.

When I was a little boy he was me entirely and I loved myself for the things my hands could do. I could go hours by myself, drawing little doodles. No point in them. My parents never saw the little thing underneath their sons eyes. How dark and sweet his eyes really were underneath the forest greenery.

But I suppose I should explain. As I grew I also acquired a gentle taste for tricks. I loved Halloween for then I could trick and it was expected of me. People were supposed to be able to be whatever they wanted then, on that night.

But they did not expect me to take a life. Neither did I until I was sitting beside a boy with a lawn dart through his throat. I think it was my eleventh Halloween and whoever the boy had been, I was sure he had annoyed me. He hadn't liked the tricks I suggested. He had been so very dull.

I do believe the child was still there. My child. He came back for me then and I laughed for I had missed him. He liked the trick. It was quite the thing. To take away the boy's breath.

He liked my tricks. He promised to stay as long as I wanted him. So you see I can't let him go.

If I do I will be alone for the rest of my days