The Devil’s Boy.

That may very well be, I replied
So it goes, it’s the devil I suppose.
It doesn’t matter much to me.
Nor I, he replied.
I left.
He followed.
We walked.
We spoke about the devil. His cunning and creativity.
Though he is an evil being, he is something to be in awe of. Not awe of his deeds, but awe of his power. His power and cunning and creativity.
We walked further and came to a stop by a weeping child.
Why do you cry? He asked.
The boy looked up; his blood shot eyes pierced into our souls. I could feel him gaze upon my being.
The boy said nothing.
We kept walking.
The devil was in that boy, I decided.
I voiced this thought to my friend.
He agreed.
We walked onward, past the trees with outstretched fingers, past mountains gloating in size, past streams and rivers snaking through the land.
We did not speak.
We could not speak.
The devil was inside us.
He passed from the boy like a fever into our eyes.
We stopped, sheltering under a fan of leaves. A trees great canopy blocking out the bright-white winter sky.
We stayed there. We huddled together in an embrace and we cried.
We wept and sobbed and cried, until our tears were pools round our feet and the ground was sodden with muddy sorrow.
There we fell into deep despair.
The tears now a river pouring from our bodies.
We melted into the ground, slipped softly from reality and flowed through the dirt to a great opening.
Here we joined a stream, a river, a sea, an ocean.
Our bodies were gone and our souls were trapped in the tide.
I thought of my friend. I still think of my friend.
I think of the boy.
The devil’s boy.
I think of mankind’s fragility and our lack of respect for good and evil.
I think of humanities forgetfulness. That we are of the land, we came from the land and we return to the land.
إن شاء الله