Post by DarkRain on May 24, 2004 15:52:12 GMT -5
It was summer and I had returned from collage to visit my parents back in my hometown. It was a warm yet cool night and I decided to go and take a walk through the forest that lay behind my home.
When I was younger I would venture into the forest to calm my nerves and to quietly think, and I needed some quiet right now.
As I ventured the now worn path to my “thinking rock”, I found it when I was a student at the local elementary school; I saw a huddled figure whimpering softly by my rock.
As I came closer I found that it was a little boy. The boy looked familiar but I couldn’t place a name to the face.
“What’s your name little boy”, I asked.
“I haven’t one”, the boy whimpered in answer.
Now thoroughly confused I asked the boy ”where do you live?”<br>
“In the house”, he answered in a hushed voice as he pointed to the old abandoned house by the forests edge a few yards to my right, “but not any more”<br>
I thought on this for a moment, I used to know a family that lived in that house. Their little boy was my friend until I turned ten and his parents said that he went to live with his grandparents. I had found this rock with him one snowy winter day, and in the midst of a furious snowball fight.
“My daddy didn’t like me or my mommy”, the boy suddenly said breaking my train of thought.
“Why do you say that?”<br>
“Because he hurt mommy and me, when he said that we were bad and when his breath smelt funny”<br>
“Is that why you are crying”, I ventured a guess.
“Oh no”, the boy exclaimed as a low growling voice came closer to us, “daddy’s home”, the boy whispered as he vanished into the darkness.
Needless to say that night I got little sleep. Ironic considering I went into the woods to clear my mind so I could sleep. All I could think of was what that little boy’s ghost had said. The next morning as I came down to breakfast I heard my father and mother talking. Rather than interrupt them I decided to go upstairs and watch TV in my room until called for. Until my mother spoke...
“Its horrible what happened to that little boy. He was only ten and the sweetest boy you could ever meet.”<br>
“It’s unfortunate that little David had to die that way and so young too”, my father said in a sad voice.
Upon hearing that name every thing immediately fell into place. I ran down the rest of the stairs and over to my parents in the living room to my immediate left. They were sitting on the couch looking at a photo album. I snatched the book from the table and stared at the picture that had sparked the conversation.
It was a picture of me as a little boy and the boy who’s ghost I saw the night before. We were both staring into the camera and making funny faces. The photo was taken one warm summer day in my backyard. Instantly I knew what had happened.
A few months after David had “moved to his grandparents” I remembered seeing a police car come up to their house and take his father away as his mother was brought to the hospital in an ambulance. I didn’t know it then but his father had apparently nearly killed his mother that night in a drunken rage. She later died in the hospital and his father was sentenced to the death penalty. They never did found David’s body.
When I was younger I would venture into the forest to calm my nerves and to quietly think, and I needed some quiet right now.
As I ventured the now worn path to my “thinking rock”, I found it when I was a student at the local elementary school; I saw a huddled figure whimpering softly by my rock.
As I came closer I found that it was a little boy. The boy looked familiar but I couldn’t place a name to the face.
“What’s your name little boy”, I asked.
“I haven’t one”, the boy whimpered in answer.
Now thoroughly confused I asked the boy ”where do you live?”<br>
“In the house”, he answered in a hushed voice as he pointed to the old abandoned house by the forests edge a few yards to my right, “but not any more”<br>
I thought on this for a moment, I used to know a family that lived in that house. Their little boy was my friend until I turned ten and his parents said that he went to live with his grandparents. I had found this rock with him one snowy winter day, and in the midst of a furious snowball fight.
“My daddy didn’t like me or my mommy”, the boy suddenly said breaking my train of thought.
“Why do you say that?”<br>
“Because he hurt mommy and me, when he said that we were bad and when his breath smelt funny”<br>
“Is that why you are crying”, I ventured a guess.
“Oh no”, the boy exclaimed as a low growling voice came closer to us, “daddy’s home”, the boy whispered as he vanished into the darkness.
Needless to say that night I got little sleep. Ironic considering I went into the woods to clear my mind so I could sleep. All I could think of was what that little boy’s ghost had said. The next morning as I came down to breakfast I heard my father and mother talking. Rather than interrupt them I decided to go upstairs and watch TV in my room until called for. Until my mother spoke...
“Its horrible what happened to that little boy. He was only ten and the sweetest boy you could ever meet.”<br>
“It’s unfortunate that little David had to die that way and so young too”, my father said in a sad voice.
Upon hearing that name every thing immediately fell into place. I ran down the rest of the stairs and over to my parents in the living room to my immediate left. They were sitting on the couch looking at a photo album. I snatched the book from the table and stared at the picture that had sparked the conversation.
It was a picture of me as a little boy and the boy who’s ghost I saw the night before. We were both staring into the camera and making funny faces. The photo was taken one warm summer day in my backyard. Instantly I knew what had happened.
A few months after David had “moved to his grandparents” I remembered seeing a police car come up to their house and take his father away as his mother was brought to the hospital in an ambulance. I didn’t know it then but his father had apparently nearly killed his mother that night in a drunken rage. She later died in the hospital and his father was sentenced to the death penalty. They never did found David’s body.
