The Boy Who Loved Dead Things

Once not so long ago, but very far away, there was a little boy who loved dead things. His name is not really very important, but let's call him Sam if you would like him to have a name. Little Sam lived on a farm with his father, mother and little brother. It was not a rich farm, but Sam and his family worked hard and they were happy as their toil would let them be. For the land was not rich, and Sam's father was old, and Sam's mother had lost a foot beneath the plow and had to hobble about on a block of wood instead a nice foot with five tiny toes, and Sam's little brother was dead. But they were happy.

As happy as they could be.

And Sam loved dead things.

Where his interest began, I do not know, but I know that by the age of ten that Sam had a special little place. A little place where he kept all his dead things. In this place he kept the dead squirrels and birds he found in the forest, the heads of the cows and the pigs his father butchered in the barn, (just the skulls, of course, you couldn't get a whole cow in there!), the bodies of two farm dogs, a great many cats, and, of course, his little brother. And little Sam would sit there in the this dark place, (of course it had to be dark!), and he would whisper and whisper to his dead things. He didn't need light. He had already seen them. It wasn't like dead things can change.

Not once they're all bony anyway.

Now before you get the funny ideas about Sam, let me assure you that he never took pleasure from the death of any of his friends. He never killed anything unless it was his duty to the farm. When he killed chickens in the door yard or squirrels in the forest, it was always for the cooking pot to feed his mother and father, (little brother didn't eat anymore). He wasn't old enough to help his father butcher and he had only killed one of the dogs, (it had been mauled by a bear and had been in great pain), and none of the cats, (he had just crawled under the house to get them when they died of old age or some such). Sam loved dead things, but he did not MAKE dead things. It was wrong to do so. Mother had said so when she read to him from THE book, (it was THE book since it was the only book they owned).

But THE book didn't say anything about things that were already dead, so Sam knew he was a very good little boy who never did anything wrong. Well, maybe ONE thing, but it had been really important. And besides, it wasn't really something mentioned in THE book, though from what he once overheard his father saying about graves and burials, he thought it might still be something that was frowned upon.

So little Sam never told anyone that he had gone out back behind the hill where his brother was buried. He never told anyone that he had dug a little tunned beside the old oak tree. He never told anyone how many nights he dug and dug with his little shovel while the moon shone down and the wind blew a rattling clatter through the empty branches of the old oak tree, (it had been dead for years). He didn't tell anyone how he eventually found his brother, (by the time he finally did there were little tunnels all through that hill), and how happy little Sam was to be with him again. He and his brother had shared a bed back in the days before the lightning had burned him and poor little Sam had felt so lonely without his baby brother there beside him in the dark. And now Sam, (who was very quiet), would come out every night and sleep beside his brother in an extra special quiet place where father's snoring and his mother's crying would never wake him up.

It was pretty neat.

And it was even better after Sam expanded some of the tunnels he had made and started keeping all his friends in there. And little Sam was never lonely and he had lots of friends and everything was just great!

And that's the end of that.

Well, maybe not quite.

The little boy's name was not Sam.

The little boy's name was Ixhosiod.

It was Ixhosiod that loved dead things, not Sam.

Sam was the name of his little brother.

But Ixhosiod loved dead things very much and he felt so sorry for them because they had so many things to say they had no way to say them. So when he grew up he left the farm and went out into the world to find a way that the dead could speak and tell their secrets. And all the time he did this he said he was working on other things so people wouldn't look at him funny. And he read many strange books with funny pictures. And he went to many strange places and talked to some VERY strange people. But wherever he went, he took his little brother with him.

In a sack.

But Ixhosiod was very smart. One of the smartest people ever! And one Halloween night, in a place far away from anyone, Ixhosiod rang a little silver bell, cut out the heart of a baby goat, (though he had drugged it so it wouldn't suffer), and called out a name that no one is supposed to know to a thing that wasn't supposed to be.

And everything changed.

And now Ixhosiod is gone, along with everyone else. There's just us left and we're very lonely.

My name is Sam.