»
Archives
»
Open Poetry #43
»
Dun Dun Duuuuun
| Open Poetry #43 |
|
Dun Dun Duuuuun |
|
|
Lady Ayla Member
since 2008-07-19
Posts 84WV, United States |
Listen to the cries of the mother who has her child back in her arms, rocking him back and forth and praying that he will stay with her forever. That he would never be lost again. Never be taken again. Listen to the child- or what looks like the child, anyway. Can't you hear the difference, can't you tell that his breathings is wrong? What's wrong about it, she asks. I don't hear anything wrong. Exactly. Didn't his breathing waver? Didn't he have the onsets of ashma? Mother, can't you see? This isn't Jimmy anymore. This is a stranger. Watch the the way he stares out into the forest with that odd smile on his face, as if he's waiting, as if he longs to go back there. What could possibly be in there for him? Squirrels and chipmunks? Berries and sticker bushes? Why can't she tell the difference between that thing that looks like her child, but really isn't? Why can't she pick out the little things that are just all wrong? That child isn't hers, nor is it anyone else's. Not anymore. He had a slight lipse to his words, he talked non-stop. Now he's silent, perfect English. What's wrong with that picture? A seven year old doesn't talk like that. He reminds me of someone old. His eyes. His eyes confirmed my suspescion. They were too experienced for his age. They looked too vacant, like he was somewhere else in time. Reliving some other moment. Perhaps when he was real? Perhaps before he was taken himself? He knows that I know, I can tell by the way he deliberatly aviods me. But he's watching me, none the same. Watching, waiting, for what? For me to tell his mother that that's not her son that she's kissing good-bye before school? That that's not her son that she spent all day in labor with? That the creature she let cuddle in bed with her when he had bad dreams wasn't her little boy? Her little Jimmy, the only thing she had left of his father? The cheater, the one who hasn't come back in two years? But the cheater does come back, and he knows that's not his son. That's not his Jimmy, the one who couldn't catch a baseball even if it was handed to him. The one who always hugged his legs, not his torso. Yeah. He knows that's not his son. But what is he? How can he look so much like Jimmy, how could he play the part so well? I know how. I know why. Ponder the fairy tale legends of things living in the forests, stealing young children from their homes. They don't eat them. They don't kill them. They make them one of their own. They themselves were taken away from their parents, forced to live in the darkness of the forests, away from man. Away from home. Turned into one of those things that took can mold their face and body like that of a child. Like the likes of Jimmy. How many missing children, how many unexplained reappearences? How many lives changed, taken...revived? Sickened, when all they wanted was to be apart of a family again. Why did you have to be apart of ours? Picture him molding his face into someone else's, just moving the skin and bones as if he were made of putty, all the while screaming because it hurt so much. Was that what happened to him, before he was taken himself? He sits across from me at the table, shoving food into his mouth. The father can't bear to look at him, the mother dotes on him, but the adults are in their own conversation, ignoring the children. "I know what you are," I whispered to him. "I am what you are." His smile didn't look right on Jimmy's face. "I was here first!" Then we stare at each other's eyes and pronounce that one word that both of us wanted to forget, wanted to burn it and forget about it and never have to go back to those horrid memories. "Hobgoblin." Dun Dun Duuuuun. |
||
| © Copyright 2008 Heather L. Baker - All Rights Reserved | |||
|
Earth Angel Member Empyrean
since 2002-08-27
Posts 40215Realms of Light |
Lady Ayla, you're a very talented storyteller!!! Gosh, I'm really enjoying your writing. It is suspenseful and compelling. You have quite the imagination and you have the ability to bring readers into the world that you create!   EA |
||
|
|
⇧ top of page ⇧ |
|
| All times are ET (US). All dates are in Year-Month-Day format. | ||
