Michael

There once was a young man named Michael. He was ugly and nobody loved him. His mother abandoned him after birth due to his hideousness, so he lived and raised himself alone. The people of the village believed him to be a child of the Devil, so they threw sticks, stones, and horrid insults as he walked by.

In order to hide from the locals, poor Michael hid in a hole in the ground in the roots of an old tree on the outskirts of the village. In his sanctuary, he would cry himself to sleep in the damp dirt—the voices in his head and the bugs in the rotting in the wood were his only company, but even they jeered at him in such a downtrodden state.

One day on a walk through the village, he happened upon a little girl. She introduced herself and asked who he was. He revealed his identity with spiteful hope of acceptance, but to his surprise, the girl was not repulsed by finding that there was a name and an undesirable title to put to his grotesquely disfigured face. In fact, she invited him down by the river to play along with her in the water, and he happily obliged.

After a long day of fun, splashing and swimming without any confrontation from any townsperson, both went their separate ways with ideas of all sorts of activities for their next outing. Michael went to sleep that night with a smile on his lips for the first time in his pathetic, miserable life.

When the sun rose, so did Michael to meet the girl from the day before at the agreed location—the field behind the church.  As he skipped to the field, he never-minded the usual harassment and offending objects, his disgusting head held high all the way. It was a mere minute when he finally arrived, and he scoped the grass for the little girl, but his search came up short.

Where could she be? Michael was crestfallen—he loved being treated like he was normal, like he was human, too.  He reflected upon his dilemma in the ground, running his lumpy, uneven fingers in the dirt, making abstract swirls.

Multiple shadows came over Michael, making him freeze and face his new company behind him.  One look up had him trembling—it was the village priest!  But he wasn't alone—many other men and women from the village were wielding miscellaneous objects as weapons.  Petrified, he was no match for the men who beat him into submission.  When they were satisfied with the damage and had bound him tightly with cattle ropes, they proceeded to drag Michael through the grass and dirt, and into the village.

They brought Michael to the village square, where they pulled a sack over his head, confining his revolting face inside the itchy, thick burlap. He felt strong hands lead him up a small staircase onto a wooded surface.

The priest began to speak when everybody ceased their complaints and exclamations.  He spoke of Michael's time under the supposed 'care' of the village, and how Michael constantly tested the patience of those who sacrificed so much for such a vile creature in the name of their God.  He went on to claim that his granddaughter, with a heart of gold, decided to 'spoil' him, and ended up cursed with Michael's affliction—she had a frightful mark on her young face that was to never disappear, and would now suffer the same damnation for her unforgivable sin of trusting and nurturing the spawn of Satan as Michael had grown to tolerate. 

With his grievances listed, Michael was sentenced to hang.  Once the second-hand noose was put over his head, a man behind him kicked the crate out from beneath his bare feet, and the sharp sound of the lever signified that the door beneath him opened, suspending him by his marred neck.

Michael was hanged, and not a single tear was shed.

The End