The Happy Little Boy

Once upon a time in a little country somewhere far away there was a forest, in the forest there was a river and by the river there was a village. The village was full of small, thatched houses and happy villagers. Well, mostly happy villagers because you see there was one house just on the edge of the village: all by itself, all alone. This sad little house belonged to a sad little boy; he didn’t have a name because none of the villagers cared enough to give him one. They all avoided him like he was sick with a terrible disease. They wouldn’t walk past him on the roads, they wouldn’t serve him in the shops. The other children would never play with him, even the pets about the village steered away from him. He had to go into the forest to forage for food at night because no-one would let him anywhere near their own food or animals. He truly was a lonely little boy.

At nighttime if anyone had bothered to venture to the sad little house owned by the sad little boy they would hear him, talking softly to nothing, whispering to the air and eventually they would hear the sound of the lonely little boy crying himself to sleep, but no-ever did because no-one ever went near. Now, you might be wondering to yourself ’why are they so cruel to the lonely little boy?’ ‘What has he done to deserve that?’ ‘the villagers are all so very horrid!’, well let me tell you; There is actually a very good reason why the villagers treat him like they do, there is a very reasonable explanation why the lonely little boy lives his lonely little life in his sad little house on the very edge of the happy little village and the reason is this: The lonely little boy lives his lonely little life because he is an evil little shit, None of the villagers would ever say that he was raised the wrong way, he wasn’t mixed in bad company, his parents adored him but kept him well, he wasn’t poor but he wasn’t spoilt, he is just a disgusting, depraved, evil little fuck.

When the lonely little boy was only eight years old his loving daddy had a terrible fall in the forest one day as he gathered wood for the fire, instead of running for help the lonely little boy watched his father as he writhed in pain, a compound fracture tearing through his skin and severing an artery. The lonely little boy just watched and counted how long it took for his father to exsanguinate and then, when he was certain that daddy breathed no more, he skipped his way back to his family house and sat down to dinner. As you could probably imagine the villagers were distraught when the lonely little boy’s father had failed to return, they gathered together to search for him while the lonely little boy sat at home with his mother awaiting the news he already knew. It took a long time for the villagers to find the body, because the lonely little boy had hidden the corpse under a log, just for fun. He and his mother sat there as the minutes passed more slowly than a snail’s pace and eventually the lonely little boy had another fine idea, he offered to make his crying mother a nice hot cup of acorn tea to help stop her from crying, because of course he didn’t want his mummy to cry. He went to the river and drew the water to boil, they had plenty of roasted acorns to make the tea at home but the lonely little boy had another ingredient in mind. Down by the river there grew many different plants and everyone in the village knew which ones were safe and which were not, they knew that the watercress was a delicious treat but the bright red berries never should they eat. The berries came from a special plant that grew only on that river and they had no taste and no smell but only a single berry was fatal to even the strongest of men and so it was that the lonely little boy took a handful of the brightly coloured fruits, carefully using a leather pouch as a glove so as not to touch them and squeezed them hard so that the lethal juice mixed with the clean, fresh water for his mother’s acorn tea. It was a little less than two hours later that the lonely little boy watched his mother choke away her final breaths with a warm little smile on his lonely little face.

It didn’t take long for the word to get around about what had happened; of course, it was a shock that she should take her own life before hearing the news of her husband but sometimes grief can be very unpredictable they all said and decided that it was best left alone, after all there was the newly orphaned child to consider now. And so, they took it upon themselves to care for the lonely little boy, to help him through his hardship. The villagers realised that although they’d known the mother and the father, they’d never known the lonely little boy, not even his name. The lovely townsfolk cooked his meals and washed his clothes, they gave him toys and treats, anything to put a smile on his unhappy little face. But all too soon the kindness stopped, not a word of thanks had come from the lips of the lonely little scrounger, not so much as a ‘Hello, good day’ not one word at all so all the villagers, frustrated in their efforts decided to leave him to himself; if he didn’t want to talk to anyone then there’d be no-one to talk to him. And so, the lonely little wastrel looked on coldly as the happy villagers went on with their happy lives all around, never again giving a thought to the lonely little house on the edge of the happy little village.

As the seasons passed by the lonely little house became cold and broken, but no-one would help, they didn’t mend the walls or thatch the roof, because why should they? And so, the lonely little boy shivered in his lonely little house as he tried to light a lonely little fire to warm his frozen little hands. He tried for an hour before the first embers glowed, but glow they did and as the embers grew from sparks to flames the comforting warmth spread across the lonely little face and the lonely little boy knew at last a familiar kind of kindness; the warm glow of the winter fire. As the fire grew to a comfortable flame the lonely little boy looked out of the window of his lonely little house at the happy little houses in the happy little village and with a happy little smile he knew how to share his kindness with the rest of the happy little village. The lonely little boy set to work, darting to and fro from the forest to the village, gathering the fallen leaves and dry twigs, back and forth from house to house piling the tinder first and then the kindling.

It was the darkest dead of a moonless night by the time the lonely little boy had finished his work and with a nod of satisfaction he returned to his house for this one last time and took a burning branch lit from his own little fire. He carefully placed the makeshift torch to the base of each pile of each house in the happy little village and then, as the flames spread across the bone-dry thatch and up the wooden walls he sat in the centre and watched, the warm glow of the fires warming him and reminding him of those few happy times he’d shared with his family, when his father was home and sober and his dear mama was not out at her work. He remembered so fondly the tiny little sliver of peace before mummy and daddy would scream and shout and fight. The flames spread so very quickly in the gentle chilly breeze, and now there were screams to punctuate the jolly crackling fire, each house so fully ablaze and not a single exit for any of them. The happy little boy smiled again as he remembered the time the villagers came and helped him after he‘d helped his mummy and daddy who were never very happy at all he thought. He didn’t know why the villagers helped him but he was grateful, even when they were unhappy too and he didn’t know why they became so mean to him. But that was all fine now, they were all happy and laughing in the warm winter fire and they could all live happily ever after.