Indelible

It wasn’t a best thing—it was far from it, but it certainly had come in a small package.

That afternoon, Hate came wrapped in a spring dress topped with bouncing blond curls and a pugish little nose that on an adult wouldn’t have been nearly as cute as it was on the little girl.

The bouncing bundle of Hate had pulled away from her mother and clop-clop-clopped her way across the nondescript tile floor over to my left leg. She came up about mid-waist on me, and I’m not a very tall woman. Craning her neck up to where my eyes were, she cocked her head sideways, a movement that set her curls into a part rippling, part bouncing frenzy. Seeing that she had my attention, her little-girl lips gave way to her little girl voice which rang out in a clear, confident, and matter-of-fact tone,

“My mommy told me you’re gonna burn in Hell. Aren’t you afraid it’s gonna hurt when you’re in all that fire?”

The words settled on me, leaving me dirty and exposed. If it weren’t such a cliché, I’d call it The Day of the Dragon. The searing brand of that little girl’s words reverberated through the room and entered me as nothing had before. The mark would come later, but the scar that moment caused had already begun to form.