Aaron's Magic Boxx

Some nights are worse than others. Some nights, I wake up alone in the dark with a cold chill settling upon me, seeping into my flesh. Other nights I toss and turn until I wake with a half-remembered image of my brother Aaron's face. In my dream --it's always the same one-- he's lying prone on the floor, his head tilted back, mouth hanging open. He reaches for me, and as he does, his fingers stretch, new joints appearing, allowing them to bend and twist until they manage to grasp me. On good nights, I don't dream at all.

Nobody but I knows what happened to Aaron, because I never told them. The events behind his disappearance are a secret I've kept for over twenty years. Our parents died believing that he had run away from home, that he was out there somewhere, alive. I thought it better to let them think that.

They might have been half right.

A Tiller of the Ground

You think good and evil don't exist? That ain't true. I've seen it. I've seen it first hand. I've even seen the Devil.

Our family was small; just my parents, my older brother Jacob, and me. Ma always doted on me, being the baby and all, much to Pa's annoyance. He'd tell her at the dinner table, "stop babying him, Gal." and she'd coo at him and say, "Don't you worry, he'll grow up big and strong just like your other son."

I hoped so. I always admired my brother Jacob. He was tall like Pa, and almost as strong too. Ma always liked to tell the story about when Jacob was six and he tried to help Pa work the plow, and how the horses dragged him through the dirt and broke his arm but he didn't even cry. He never cried. Maybe Jacob wanted to be like Pa just like I wanted to be like Jacob. "He even looks just like Pa when he was that age," Ma would say.

I'll never forget the night Satan destroyed our family...

But I can't just jump right to that.