To Be Continued

Well, Ma`am, I should be very grateful to you. But I`m not. Why was the little girl killed? It took me a long time to think of it again and again. Eventually I decided to write to you. You were leading the hearing. I am a free man, cleared from the crime that dreadful woman, the prosecutor, tried to blame on me. You didn`t believe her. The evidence against me didn`t impress you at all. How beautifully you said: "A man is not guilty unless he is proven guilty!"
But I am guilty, Ma'am! I did kill that poor little girl! She was the last person I wanted to die, but I killed her.
Yes, the prosecutor was right. I had met that girl on the playground. Everybody would say: "Children`s playground is the place for children to play and for their parents to watch them. It is not the place for strangers to come". I completely agree with this very sensible point of view. Children need to play, parents should love their children. That little girl never played! I never saw her parents around. She was always alone. Not exactly alone, though. Every day she came to the playground, I was sitting on the bench, pretending to read a newspaper. I don`t know if the girl ever noticed that the newspaper was out of date long time ago.
The little girl didn`t play on the playground. She didn`t make mounds on the wet sand. She never slid down the slippery slide polished by so many bottoms of other children. I never saw her swinging up to the sky and down to the matted floor. She usually sat down next to me on the bench, smiled shyly to me and started to feed pigeons. She pretended to be fully engaged in her task, while I pretended to be reading. And nobody around.
Ma'am, I am a young and good-looking lad. You would agree - you saw me. But I have never been interested in young and sexy girls. I never had friends. I never needed friends! Not in my childhood, nor now. My so-called friends would pretend that the most desirable thing in their life was to escape from their abusive, money-hungry wives. They would pretend that they need freedom. But, Ma'am, they always went back home. They were hypnotised rabbits. They deserved their crocodiles` wives. What`s more, Ma'am, all of them had dirty necks. Can anybody explain TO me why I have to be friendly with people who aren`t even able to wash their own necks properly?
I hate dirty necks. My mum was right when she called people who were not able to look after their own appearances as totally useless in this world.
My mum was absolutely right when she shut the door behind me and switched the light off, when I forgot to wash my neck one morning. I deserved that, Ma'am, I really did! It was so simple and so easy a task to be done! But, Ma'am, it was so scary there, in that dark room. I was five years old then. When my mum pushed me inside shouting: "You`ll learn your lesson, Pit. Sit here and think about how a good boy should behave." The doors slammed behind me and a total darkness wrapped me from my dirty neck to the trembling feet which suddenly lost all their strength.
I sat down on something bulky. Oh, Ma'am, I don`t know what or who it was but it didn`t like me to sit down on it. It snaked into my ear: "Wassshhh!"
I jumped up but that thing still wasn`t happy with me. It tried to bite me. It grabbed my right ear with its hungry sharp teeth. I pulled my head to the left and something huge and furry caught me. I shook it off, lost my balance and fell down on something slimy and cold as death. Horrified, I jumped up to my feet again. I didn`t know how many monsters lived in that room.
I desperately wanted my mum to come and rescue me from these monsters. I tried to shout for help. But my mouth refused to help me. I leaned back on the wall and waited to be eaten. I just froze and tried to hold my breath. A tiny hope still lived inside of my little body - probably they would think that I left.
I waited and waited and at last the door opened. My mum asked: "Have you learned your lesson?"
She pulled me out - I didn`t look back. I was too scared. I think, my mum was scared, too, because she didn`t look inside of that room either. She just pulled me out and asked again: "Have you learned your lesson?"
I just nodded and ran to the bathroom to wash my neck. I didn`t see my mum shut the door of that room.
That little girl always had a very clean, shiny neck. So fragile, so thin!
Ma'am, I wish that day, 21st August 2007, never came. It was warm on that day. Not painfully hot, like in the middle of July, but gently warm. I don`t know why my feelings were different on that day. I felt I was free from something. It was so nice just to sit on my bench, being empty in my mind and not to care what would happen next. My body was almost weightless. My body lost its cramped shell. If I just remained in that condition forever, nothing would happen.
That day I saw a caterpillar, a very fat caterpillar. Hairs that looked like hedgehog's spines covered the whole caterpillar's short body. The busy creature slowly crawled along the sand and I was pretty sure that I heard its heavy breathing. The caterpillar moved in the direction of the nearest rowan. The way it tried to cross was less than one-step for a man, but for the caterpillar that journey seemed to be very long and extremely dangerous. It's hard to explain, but I felt that I cared a lot about that caterpillar. I feared whether it would reach a secure shelter under the rowan, or it would be trampled by someone's shoe, or it would be pecked by a crow. I didn't do anything to help the caterpillar. If I just lifted it up and put it under the rowan, it would be saved; but I did nothing. I observed its moving and sighed with relief when the caterpillar eventually reached the thin tree and disappeared between the leaves.
That little girl was not afraid of me. Perhaps, I was such a familiar thing in her life as that caterpillar. I should have killed that caterpillar afterwards. I should have got rid of a witness!
It was getting dark at the playground. It was time to go home for me and for the girl. I waited for a while; I couldn`t leave her on her own on the dark playground. Nobody came for her. I took it as my responsibility to escort her home. I took her hand and saying nothing just gently pulled her to go with me. She smiled and followed me. I smiled back.
And then I noticed a tiny spot of mud on the girl`s neck. I tried to rub it away. I was rubbing and rubbing it, but that little spot just didn`t want to disappear. When I realised that it wasn`t a spot of mud but a mole, it was too late, Ma'am. The little poor thing stopped breathing. I just couldn`t allow her to be eaten by monsters who lived in the dark room.