HOME | DD

Description
Once upon a time there was a boy. Unlike most children that were once upon a time, this boy did not have any special talents, royal blood or exciting secrets that would one day be revealed after a childhood of rejection by family or peers. No, this boy was the necessary opposite to these children of adventure and brave deeds. He seemed normal and he felt normal, but there was something BAD inside of him. He wasn't sure what it was, he'd never felt it, only been told by his parents, by his peers, by the wizened elder by the rundown cottage that it was there. As he grew, he became accustomed to the whispers, the dark looks, the frightened villagers who dived behind hedges at his approach, and just did his best to compensate for the thing. He was the most helpful boy in the village; he did his own chores, those of his siblings, his parents, his neighbours, he helped the elderly by preparing food, chopping wood and fetching medicine, he played with the orphaned children who flitted around the outskirts of the village, finding food, clothes and toys for them. But still, his parents would look darkly at each other when he entered the room, resentful and frightened of him with that BAD something inside.

When he grew older, he finally felt the BAD thing stir. One day, after a particularly rough time of rejection and being ostracised, he felt it bubbling up inside until he could not control himself and he screamed and raged and punched the wall in frustration. The terrified looks in his parents' eyes made him realise what had happened. That thing had come to the surface; he was no longer fit to live in human company. He fled to an isolated cave far from any human settlement. He wept and repented and punished himself for letting the BAD thing take control. After months of this painful self-deprecation he grew numb. He hated himself so deeply that he no longer felt the thing and assumed that it was unable to exist with such a force of self-hatred pushing down upon it. But this meant that the beautiful, kind parts of the boy's soul that had grown in compensation barely had room to breathe around the suffocating hatred. The boy sat, silent and still, in the mouth of his cave. Sometimes small animals would come and huddle by him for warmth and then his only movement was to gently stroke them. He wasted away as he regarded himself unworthy to take the food that better beings might eat. Some of his small companions began to collect berries and nuts for the boy, but he left them or pushed them towards the furry creatures at his side. Eventually, he closed his eyes to sleep through another night of dreamless darkness, but never woke up. The animals noticed the cooling of his body and hesitantly left him, all the while thinking: 'what a shame, he was a far sight better than most humans.'

The saddest part of this boy's tale is that there was never anything bad inside of him. He'd been taught for so long to believe it, and it had been so strongly impressed upon him, that he found it impossible to question it; he just couldn't get past the countless assurances that it was there. And so, a GOOD boy, a boy that was BETTER than most people, was tormented to a sad and lonely end, and all his GOODNESS and LOVE was squandered by people too mean, too ignorant, too BAD themselves to comprehend what they had been doing to him. And the world was worse off for it.

Description
Once upon a time there was a boy. Unlike most children that were once upon a time, this boy did not have any special talents, royal blood or exciting secrets that would one day be revealed after a childhood of rejection by family or peers. No, this boy was the necessary opposite to these children of adventure and brave deeds. He seemed normal and he felt normal, but there was something BAD inside of him. He wasn't sure what it was, he'd never felt it, only been told by his parents, by his peers, by the wizened elder by the rundown cottage that it was there. As he grew, he became accustomed to the whispers, the dark looks, the frightened villagers who dived behind hedges at his approach, and just did his best to compensate for the thing. He was the most helpful boy in the village; he did his own chores, those of his siblings, his parents, his neighbours, he helped the elderly by preparing food, chopping wood and fetching medicine, he played with the orphaned children who flitted around the outskirts of the village, finding food, clothes and toys for them. But still, his parents would look darkly at each other when he entered the room, resentful and frightened of him with that BAD something inside.

When he grew older, he finally felt the BAD thing stir. One day, after a particularly rough time of rejection and being ostracised, he felt it bubbling up inside until he could not control himself and he screamed and raged and punched the wall in frustration. The terrified looks in his parents' eyes made him realise what had happened. That thing had come to the surface; he was no longer fit to live in human company. He fled to an isolated cave far from any human settlement. He wept and repented and punished himself for letting the BAD thing take control. After months of this painful self-deprecation he grew numb. He hated himself so deeply that he no longer felt the thing and assumed that it was unable to exist with such a force of self-hatred pushing down upon it. But this meant that the beautiful, kind parts of the boy's soul that had grown in compensation barely had room to breathe around the suffocating hatred. The boy sat, silent and still, in the mouth of his cave. Sometimes small animals would come and huddle by him for warmth and then his only movement was to gently stroke them. He wasted away as he regarded himself unworthy to take the food that better beings might eat. Some of his small companions began to collect berries and nuts for the boy, but he left them or pushed them towards the furry creatures at his side. Eventually, he closed his eyes to sleep through another night of dreamless darkness, but never woke up. The animals noticed the cooling of his body and hesitantly left him, all the while thinking: 'what a shame, he was a far sight better than most humans.'

The saddest part of this boy's tale is that there was never anything bad inside of him. He'd been taught for so long to believe it, and it had been so strongly impressed upon him, that he found it impossible to question it; he just couldn't get past the countless assurances that it was there. And so, a GOOD boy, a boy that was BETTER than most people, was tormented to a sad and lonely end, and all his GOODNESS and LOVE was squandered by people too mean, too ignorant, too BAD themselves to comprehend what they had been doing to him. And the world was worse off for it.