Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24714617-20140512023110

This is me attempting to be Kafka. Oh my, I hope I did him justice.

Imaginary Friends

 That wretched thing would watch the boy with intent, as he made his siblings’ lives miserable. Many times I’ve tried to counsel the kid but he’d pay no heed. I knew that he could hear me –as all children can- but he chose not to. I warned him that keeping demons for company would bring about his ruin. I warned him that one day, he might become the ultimate slave, bound to the rocks in the murky waters below the sea without even noticing.

 The boy tinkered with the alarm clock; making it display frightful messages, physically restrained his younger brothers in awkward positions, forced them to watch horror movies, and threatened his siblings with even harsher torture should they complain. Yes, healthy children are known to be cruel sometimes, but something compelled him to make sadism a way of life at so young an age. Something dark.

 It kept fueling the boy’s dark passions and praising every new act of mischief he brought upon his terrified kin. But it realized that he couldn’t get much more from its plaything, as the boy drew the line at murdering his family, so it left to seek vengeance against him who defied his authority.

 Or rather, it didn’t leave at all. As the boy grew quieter and tamer with each passing day his siblings lost all fear of him and arranged to punish the boy for his misdeeds. I have no influence over any children that wasn’t assigned to my care, but the demon could freely work its way into the heads of the boy’s siblings. Frightened, he accepted my protection but I could only comfort the boy as his once timid brothers devised punishments for him which got crueler by the day.

 Finally, they prayed for his death. I shed countless tears, but the boy had atoned for his sins. Though he had suffered twice the evil he had wrought in the past few months, he was at peace. And so he didn’t object to being tied and having his throat slashed.  