Landscapes for the Dead

Aren't Children Delightful?

Horgo was a different kid. Before his birth the doctors warned his parents that he would always be behind other children his age, and even though they loved him they saw within the year that this was true. When they sent him off to preschool he still couldn't speak and the other kids teased him and made him cry. The days were rare when his mother picked him up and he was happy and cheerful.

"Iy no' omal?" he asked her one day after preschool, looking up at her with red and puffy eyes. "Why am I not Normal?" she understood. She picked him up and hugged him, telling him she loved him and that he was beautiful, but she didn't have an answer to his question.

The next year Horgo went to school, and was treated the same. He liked colourings, but trying to write confused and angered him, so much that on one occasion he stabbed another student on the ribs with his pencil. The other student got a ride on a bed whilst the teacher held Horgo's arms behind his back roughly. It hurt. He didn't think teachers were supposed to be mean like the other kids. He had cried.

At lunchtimes he sat alone in the same spot each day, eating out of his lunchbox which had a cartoon lion and giraffe on the lid. He liked to pretend they were his friends and that they could hear what he said. They didn't make fun of him when he pronounced words funny. The other kids played on the playground and in the sand pit. A group of boys on the concrete had themselves some toy cars that they liked to play with. They were laughing and having fun, and Horgo longed to join in. He had several cars of his own at home, but they were bland and plastic. He wanted to impress the boys.

The next day his mother got out of bed to go wake up her son. She clicked on the light in his room but his sheets were empty. Usually he stayed in bed until she came to get him, but she supposed he was probably watching TV. She walked into the lounge room. He wasn't there. She was starting to panic now. She woke up her husband then searched through the other rooms in her house, calling Horgo's name. She didn't find him. His father grabbed his keys and headed out to the car to search the streets as his mother called the police. She sat on a chair and started sobbing. A moment later the front door opened and his father walked in, carrying Horgo in his arms.

"Show da bois," Horgo was saying excitedly. "Daddy's big car, and da bois!"

His mother laughed and wiped the tears from her cheeks, relieved to have her son back. He had been sitting behind the wheel of the car the whole time, meaning to drive it to school and impress the boys playing with their toy cars, but he couldn't reach the pedals, or much less figure out how to work the gearstick. Before taking him to school they bought him a shiny car from the shops to show the others at school. Horgo came home with it broken.

In his second year at school the incident with the hen house happened. There were three bantam hens down at the bottom of the yard, locked in a wire mesh cage. They were the school pets. Each grade of students took it in turns every week to clean out their cage, replace the hay, refresh the water, feed them. They were nice hens, but Horgo was mildly afraid that they would peck his arms and face and make him bleed. He avoided the cage whenever he didn't need to be near it but wasn't so scared that he wouldn't feed them when asked. He didn't like taking his eyes off them, however, and backed out of the cage quickly once done.

One lunchtime he was sitting at the edge of the playground area, picking out slices of cucumber from his sandwich and throwing them away, when a group of about eight boys from both his year and the year above gathered around him. He pretended he didn't notice them.

"Hey, Horgo, what you doing there?" said the ringleader, an older boy called Arthur. He sat next to him.

"Pick'n ut coo-cumber," said Horgo.

"Not normal," said one of the kids standing. "He's not normal."

"Cool," Arthur said to Horgo. "You're a cool kid." Horgo brightened up at that, and flicked away another slimy disc of cucumber. It landed on one of the boy's shoes.