Fostering Hatred in Innocent Creatures

I followed the man for years, much as my frail wings could carry me. I wasn’t built for such extensive travel, but he moved across the land often; I imagined he felt it too risky to remain in one place too long, lest his sins pile up over his back, crushing him. I’d seen the vile nature of his heart, watched it grow and fester into something that chilled me. Even as a child, it churned there, bubbling a cruelty that no one seemed to recognize. But I had seen it, and I swore to inflict a suffering as great as the one he’d imparted upon me. Still, in seeing him age, I began to question whether the man was even capable of suffering. I wasn’t sure he felt anything at all. 

Only children are able to see faeries. Something about the sincerity of a young heart, unclouded and, I don’t know, true—something of that sort—made us visible to them. Grandfather spoke of it often, but any attempts to recollect his words always proved…inefficient. All I could see were limbs plucked like petals from a wildflower. Any memories of him, of anyone from my colony, were reduced to bloodied patches. They weren’t just deaths, they were complete erasures of life before, and life after. Just wings, stained and fallen to the ground in my memories. That’s what was left. 

When the boy discovered our colony, we expected it to proceed as it usually did. Most children were ecstatic at the broadening of the horizon, magic amongst them. They reveled in the making of tiny, secretive friends who’d show them the blossoming flowers. The boy was far different, his curiosity taking another form entirely. 

He approached in slow steps, narrowing his eyes and pressing his lips together tightly. He reached down quickly, swiping a lone Faerie with one swing of his hand, holding them tightly between his fingers. It was Grandfather, who was much older and sluggish, unable to fly away or escape the grasp that held him, not that he made much effort. He simply smiled, the wrinkles of his face spreading like warmth, and held out his arms. There was an intense look to the boy’s eyes, both empty and full of something inexplicable. My pulse began to thicken. This child, he was not friendly. 

By the time panic began to set in, it was too late. The boy took great care in lifting up Grandfather’s arm between his index finger and thumb and pulling, quite gently at first, until there was a tiny pop, and Grandfather let out a guttural cry. Still it continued—Pop, pop, pop. He was plucked clean, spilling out from the boy’s hand. It took everyone a moment to process and find the strength to react, but soon we swarmed, tossing dirt and twigs at the boy until he found himself overwhelmed. He swatted at us until, with great annoyance, he fled.

 There was a frenzy. Some wished to mourn, others to evacuate, and some had something strange start to fill up their hearts in the horror of it all. Their expressions frightened me; I could not understand them. I’d never seen such faces. A few moments passed before we heard loud footsteps. The boy reappeared, a dubious spray bottle in hand, and began dousing us in a sticky, suffocating death. I lost sight of Father, and my sisters fell to the weight of poison upon their wings. Their bodies twisted and writhed, soon crushed under the heel of the boy’s shoes. The crunch of my people was a deafening sound. I willed myself to crawl between the blades of grass. The boy sprayed through the field for hours, searching, unsatisfied at the thought of even a single survivor. Come sundown, he began his way home.

 My breath left me in heaves, the immensity of our massacre taking the very air from me. The sky seemed to close in, and my blood ran boiled, everything far too intense for the smallness of my body. He came back the following day, repeating his routine, and so the grass and flowers withered under him, drowning in a strongly willed death. He stomped, and he sprayed, and he stomped, and still I hid. The stench of the air made it impossible to fly. I cannot remember how many times he reappeared.

Some days I felt I was back in the field, between withered blades of grass, waiting for him to find me. 

Once I regained my strength, I flew to where he stayed, taking note of the direction he left every time he came to re-murder my home. Then, I recognized in myself the filth that I had seen creep into the hearts of my friends during the initial attack. The expressions that frightened me so—I carried them now, over the features of my own hollowed face. I wanted to cause pain, but the means never came simply enough, for I was too small and feeble. What was I to do except watch?

 He grew, and grew, with the vacancy in his eyes ever present. He was distinct from other people in a way that terrified me. Sometimes I’d catch him looking out from the window, into the field, with the blankest of expressions. Then he would smirk, just for the slightest of moments, and turn away. In those moments I wished myself dead. Anything was better than the helplessness of seeing the boy, and being the only one who knew. I disappointed myself and my people in every second that passed and the boy took in easy air. I was the faerie who knew, and could do nothing. 

Over the years, I’d seen him hurt many others. He would speak kindly to them, drawing them to his home, only to pluck them limb from limb as he had done to Grandfather so many years ago. It seemed to come just as easily, despite the noticeable size difference between victims. As much as I wished to help, my stature and lack of strength was debilitating in every way possible. If the victims could see me, I could at least impart some kind of warning, but I was forced to use more subliminal means. I resorted to hurried taps, or the pulling of hair, but none of it ever worked. The boy, then a man, continued to win, and after a while he’d move somewhere else and begin all over again. 

The cycle repeated, like the spraying and killing of a faerie yard. Spray. Stomp. Repeat. Spray. Stomp. Repeat. Pop, pop, pop. 

He held nothing precious, and had no one he was close to. There was nothing to take from him, nothing to make him know the pain of what he had done to me, and what he continued to do. He was the beacon of suffering, that in its very existence could not be made to understand what it meant to suffer. To hate him was to hate the untouchable sky. What does one do when they loathe the sky, lying beneath it everyday? How do they make the sky know, and regret, and mourn? 

I grew older quickly, much faster than the man himself. I found myself getting close to the age Grandfather was then. There was a cruelty to that, like a life unspent and undeserved. At the rate I was going, I’d crumble to ashes right on the man’s countertop, and he’d dust me away like I was never anything at all. The days grew long, and my wings were weary. I couldn’t handle another move. This was my last stop, and so what was to be done?

 If only the man could see me.

Come winter, a woman appeared in his apartment, eager to grow close to the man who’d charmed her a few days prior. Her voice was airy and nervous, similar to the way most of the man’s victim’s behaved. Still, there was a tinge of familiarity in the way she spoke, and then I realized I’d seen her before. One of the other children who’d found our colony was a lonely girl, unable to make regular friends, but very much enthused with having faerie friends to run around with. She’d bring us fruits from her kitchen, and we’d trade her flowers. The shy playfulness to her voice stuck through to her adult years, and there she was, in stark contrast to the last child who’d found us. If only she knew what he did to her friends, what he intended to do to her. 

She gifted him a candle, lighting it with matches she carried in her purse. She explained it was for good luck and new opportunities. She believed in that sort of magical thing, after all. The man gave a terse laugh, preparing her a drink as the candle burned. I stared at the flame, studying the hot flick of it. He never saw me again after that day. At first I was too afraid to reveal myself, and after a certain point, I couldn’t no matter how fervidly I’d wished to. But he could see fire. I made a decision then, gathering every last bit of intense energy I had, and threw myself over the flame. 

I caught fire in an instant, the blaze encompassing my shape and making me undeniable. I howled with mixture of pleasure and fury, and careened toward the man. His eyes widened at the sight of me, I’m sure the recollection of my form rushing forth to the front of his mind. I screamed in gleeful pain. Look at me, look at me and know what you have done. I tossed my ignited body at his face, lighting him up as I held onto his hair. He flailed about, and I could hear the woman scream. I felt us fall over his couch and crash up against the wall, our fire spreading steadily over his entire apartment. I could not go without him losing something, and if nothing truly mattered, then I’d simply take it all.  

We burned in a giant ball of malice, melting into each other in a pile on his living room floor as hell enveloped everything in a fiery haze. It was like being suffocated in a poisonous, hot smoke. The man’s bookshelf began to crack as the fire ate away its wooden base, and so it toppled over, sending its entire weight toward the man on the floor, crushing him. Something in the ceiling squeaked and water fell, dousing the whole room in a cool liquid as a blaring alarm filled the air. The man gasped from beneath me, and I could feel in him the very desperation that I felt from my people, gasping for air and crushed beneath his heel, depleted to blood and mangled form. 

With that, I’d taken my last breath, satisfied in the fact that the man could feel what it was like to be a tiny creature, wet and dying and gone.

If one finds that they themselves hating the sky, then what is there to do, but reach up and touch it in a consuming blaze of smoke? The drawback then is that you become a bit of the sky itself, but by then you don’t feel much of anything. 

There is no pain. 

There is no hatred. 

There is just fire, crackling and popping and consuming. Pop, pop, pop.