Dora: Exploring Death And Pain

SWIPER

Despite what many people believed,  swiper was not a thief. In fact, he was actually a rather nice person, or, well, fox. He genuinely cared about people and wanted what was best for everyone who lived in his community.

One day as he was walking along a path, he ran into a little girl carrying a map and a backpack.  They said their hello's and chatted for a while. Swiper, being the nice fox he was, invited the little girl over for dinner.

Any normal girl would have declined and quickly been on their way for it isn't safe to talk to strangers, but this little girl was different. You might even call her special.

This little girl was a killer.

Maybe swiper should have trusted his gut and ran away when he saw that queer glint in her eye as she eagerly agreed. Maybe he shouldn't have invited her over after she started talking about her grandma dying with a smile on her face and stoped at the nearby stream to wash the fresh blood off her hands.

But swiper pushed all those thoughts aside and instead thought about how exited she was. No, he didn't think about why exactly she was exited, or why she kept glancing at his neck as she cleaned her fingernails with a knife she had stowed in her backpack. He just thought about how inviting her over would make her happy, and helping people made him happy.

As they neared his home, the smile on the girls face grew wider, her eyes shining in a kind of sinister way. Looking at her made swiper nervous, so for the remainder of their journey swiper resorted to looking his feet.

As soon as they arrived at his house swiper went to work preparing the food. He told the little girl to wait in the dining room (which was next to the kitchen) and let her be.

For the most part he cooked in silence, but doon swiper started hearing voices coming from where he left the girl. Swiper chose to ignore it, passing the voices of as the wind until he heard the sound of faint crying.

Thinking it was the girl crying he rushed into the the kitchen to a rather unexpected sight.

Instead of seeing a sad looking girl sitting in his dining room, he saw a very happy girl holding a monkey by its throat over a burning fireplace.

What was going on? Why was the sweet little girl doing this?!

In his confusion, swiper ran towards the girl in an attempt to save the poor whimpering monkey, but swiper had always been a rather clumsy fox, and instead of grabbing the monkey from the girl (which was his intention) he tripped and nocked the monkey into the fire.

The monkeys shrieks of pain didn't last long. Monkey fur is very flammable so the fire quickly spread everywhere over his small body.

Swipers cries of despair lasted much longer.

Long enough for the little girl to retrieve her knife. Long enough for her to pull it out of it's sheath and hold it to swipers throat.

His anguished cries faded into terrified whimpers as he realized why she brought her knife. As he realized what she planed to do to him.

In a final act of desperation he twisted her around and grabbed the knife. He ran out the door, but like we previously discovered, swiper is rather clumsy and he forgot about the small stream at the side of the house.

He fell into the stream, dropping the knife in the process, anything to get away from that gurl, to get away from what he had done.

He found a nearby cave to hide in and stayed there in misery and fear for several days.

When he finally emerged from his solitude no one would talk to him.

The people who were once his friends ignored him and looked toward him wearily.

He walked towards in defeat only to find a pile of ashes and a pristine, white, piece of paper. The paper was blinding against the dark charcoal and impossible to miss.

The note was from the little girl. In it she wrote of how she told the villagers of what happened to the monkey. Of what he had done. That is why the people were scared of him.

In his heart, swiper knew they were right. He knew that the death of the monkey was his fault.

With no home in the village, the defeated fox trudged back to the cold, lonely cave, tearing the letter on the way. Letting the pieces floating away on the wind.

One piece remained intact, the piece where the girl signed her name.

Dora.