A Dark Zealousness

• Jessica Galea, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2009

It couldn’t be. I was more than sick. I was diseased. This was punishment for the sin. The sin that had been inside me for nine months, terrorizing me along with the punishment, playing grotesque, mischievous havoc on my conscience, making me pay.

I couldn’t suffer alone. I needed someone who could. Someone who had experienced the dark shadow of sin, the shadow that hung over his shoulder, sucking away at his innocence, making him pay the price and now condemning me. I scrambled for a pen and paper. I needed Collin.

But what had become of him? I did not know. I knew that he was staying near a church. I had hoped that that would pull some of the pure essence of innocence and religiousness into his obviously hungry soul. A thought suddenly struck me. The thing would be out by then. What if he asked? I stopped and shook the thought away. He wouldn’t dare to ask about what he thinks he already knows. I don’t like to repeat myself and he had literally felt it.

I dressed solemnly on the morning of the day that I would go to meet my menacing, sinful child and bring him home. Home was the one place where I could control what he learnt and how he was being punished. Once again, I hoped he could be converted. I heard a loud crying from the empty room. That thing was making the loudest noise I had ever heard, even from it. I strode towards the box, the drabbest I could find. Even its smooth wood was too good for the brat. I stripped off the flimsy tape that was still on its mouth, making it cry louder and replaced it with a stronger piece. Then I turned off the light, closed the door, and walked away.


I waited at the station anxiously. I was a wreck. I so wanted for him to have become a true child of God. I thirsted for his innocence, I wanted for him to be a candidate for the eternal kingdom. My thoughts were more poisonously maternal than ever before. I sighed as I noted that. He was my son, after all. Ten years of living with him was bound to take its influential toll on my heart.

When I saw him, I didn’t recognise him. He had become tall and strong-looking. He was every bit as handsome as his fa- I stopped myself there. Such thoughts were what created sin in the first place. Now look at my burdens. Then he called me. I doubted that there was a single sane person who was known by that name that could resist that call. I looked closer and saw through the older face, into the quiet boy that I had trained so carefully. We smiled at each other and continued on home.

That night, I was full of rage, the dark but never harming monster that lived in my heart. When I had Collin, I soon began to see that he had not, as I hoped, blossomed under the shadow of the chapel, but grown worse.

I took him home, placing him under the false pretence that the brat was a good thing, a surprise. He had been exceedingly rude on the bus, asking all sorts of questions. When I had him home, he tried to find out more about my security measures, an inappropriate thing for a young boy to know about. When he saw the brat however, he thought, like I had wanted, that it was a pure and sweet thing. He crossed my line, by showing his delight, taking concern for its health and trying to show it affection.

I took him away from its foul presence, to interrogate him. I had confirmed my suspicions that he was stealing, taking charity from those obviously foul villagers. He had the impertinence to ask for gifts for me! He had been mingling with girls, the very height of sin! I didn’t want my son to make my mistakes. But then he gave me the proof of higher sin. He was friends with a filthy Jew! And the monster hadn’t roared louder all night, until he denied all of his crimes.


I still can’t think clearly of that evening. My memory is to full of the absolute hatred I felt for that war. It had taken away the one thing in my life that had occupied me, my project, no, experiment of raising a child on good Catholic morals. It had diseased my poor child’s spirit and so I felt too much anger to contain in myself.

My scream had mingled with that of the monster as I beat him, trying to show him the pain he caused me. The heavy pan should have killed him, but he had not even the grace to cry. I dragged his unconscious body to the basement and locked him in. I then went and got the creature from its box and threw it down there as well. I tied him to a peg and slammed the door on him. I then started packing. I had the thought of going to the peaceful retreat I had heard about. I left, closing the door on my filthy son, the black creature, and my hellhole life.

I regret that now. Who was I to take such matters into my hands? I hope that someone found them and helped them. They could be saved. It was too late for me. I realised, one second too late, at that camp.

We reviewed the Ten Commandments in a group. Thou shalt not kill… that’s what He is doing; slaughtering innocent Jews. And I supported that. There is a branch. I have a length of rope. Lord, take away my helplessness. I should suffer. Eternity, even spent in damnation is welcoming now. Pray for Collin, pray for my poor unnamed daughter. Pray for me.