Dark Shadow

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Matthew 18:14

As I sit here, forced bolt upright by the stiff high backed chair, an icy feeling fills my sense, as for some untold reason I am compelled to delve deep into the past. My imagination becomes a child which dances and skips through the pathways of my memory. The child passes memories that were once on fire but now lie cold and burned out, like the remains of old bonfires. Eventually she stops short in front of a memory that still burns hot and painful, and jumps back as her pretty little feet are scalded on the coals. This is one memory I never wanted to return to, but it sits there, like a timebomb in my head, and I feel that if I leave it alone it will explode.

“Jesus loves me this I know, ‘cause the bible tells me so” A small girl with unruly chestnut hair, blue eyes and a cheeky freckled smile sings quietly as she drifts off into the dreamworld, surrounded by soft eiderdown and the loving arms of her father.

“Goodnight”, he says softly, kissing her forehead, then leaving the door open just a crack so that she can see the landing light and not be afraid.

About as angelic as any person could look, her innocence untouched, she is naive, carefree, and rests in the halfway state between heaven and earth. A little child, trusting and loving of everyone around her, she knows nothing of evil so why should she fear it?

But the landing light is not enough to protect her from the shadows of the night, nor Jesus’ loving protection enough to shield her from all the things experience will show her in her life. Experience will mar her innocence, so let her be a child unmarred for as long as she can be, let her rest in this perfect state for a few years yet.

But evil has already entered the bower of innocence, in sheep’s clothing a dark shadow has slipped into the house seemingly quite naturally, gaining the trust of the parents, the admiration of the children, the little girl and her brother.

He comes in human form but there is no humanity in him, only selfishness and corruption. Shadows do not have souls. I doubt if flesh and blood have provided this one with the sensibilities of a soul.

He worked his way in gradually, helping around the house, cooking, cleaning, baby-sitting. And the parents trusted him, their hearts of gold went out to him in pity as he told them of his plight, of his poverty. He could have robbed them any of those nights he was alone in the house with their children. But he didn’t.

Instead he stole their child’s childhood, her innocence. The right of every child to be pure was taken from her against her will. It was a blue sleeping bag with a side-zip.

How was she to know it was wrong? She knew nothing of evil, she was as innocent and pure as the Christ child. The same Christ whose tears of rage were like many oceans when he saw what was being done to his precious one. His dear heart.

The blow which was to save her came one tea time when she, chatting happily as always with her parents, let it slip, said it aloud, told them what he did to her.

Silence for what seemed like hours, the plunging feeling that something wasn't right. How was she to know it was wrong? It was wrong. What had happened was wrong, bad, evil. And it was all her fault.

Tears streaming down her freckled cheeks, guilt and shame welling up from the bottom of her soul she sobbed a thousand sorrys.

Her father, her daddy, was beside himself with rage, and she, poor precious creature, thought he was angry with her, not with the dark shadow. She blamed herself for a sin she had not committed, a sin she did not even understand.

Her father questioned her intensely, asked her probing questions which made her feel dirty, and more guilty still. As soon as he'd realised the guilty feelings welling up inside her he insisted desperately that she was not to blame, that she had done nothing wrong, but his angry voice frightened her, and the tears did not subside until his tears were joined with hers and the whole family, the family who had been happy and blissfully ignorant but a few minutes ago, sat on the little girl's bed and wept, a great chasm of blackness overwhelming them.

At first her father wanted to kill the dark shadow, to teach him that what he had done deserved death, no other punishment would be enough, and for some time he plotted his revenge. But it was the little girl who gently asked her daddy not to hurt the dark shadow, still not quite understanding the gravity of the situation, but at the same time showing the forgiving heart of an innocent child, she begged him not to.

He arranged to meet him in his office, and confronted him. It tore his heart and broke his spirit to have to face this man and forgive him. The dark shadow said nothing, only hung his head, he showed no shame, no remorse, his only regret seemingly was that he had been discovered.

He never came back. She never saw him again. She feared she would. She feared worse. She feared he would come back and do it again. That or kill her. She feared he would do it to someone else, someone as innocent as she, someone who would not tell, not until it was too late.

What sort of person does this? What sort of person can mar perfection, the only frail perfection we maintain in our lives? What sort of person can steal innocence? The kingdom of darkness belongs to such as these.