This story disturbed me a great deal, and that's a good thing.
Sooner or later tragedy, in one form or another, strikes everyone. It cannot be avoided in this world you and I never made. The bad little kid -- to my mind -- represents the answer to all those why questions that neither faith nor intellect can ever seem to manage in the face of all the bad things that keep happening to all the (reasonably) good people.
He's what I like to call a capering god of mischief, and whether or not he is actually there will not answer the question of whether or not the people among whom he capers are crazy (or not).
Sooner or later tragedy, in one form or another, strikes everyone. It cannot be avoided in this world you and I never made. The bad little kid -- to my mind -- represents the answer to all those why questions that neither faith nor intellect can ever seem to manage in the face of all the bad things that keep happening to all the (reasonably) good people.
He's what I like to call a capering god of mischief, and whether or not he is actually there will not answer the question of whether or not the people among whom he capers are crazy (or not).