I was bullied heavily when I was a kid. At first glance you can easily see why: arms as thin and weak as spaghetti, a freckled face and glasses perched perilously on my nose. Physically I couldn’t fight back; and I didn’t have the wits to come up with clever retorts. I was shunned by both boys and girls, laughed and mocked. They took cruel pleasure in watching me curl up into a rock on the field, whimpering like a scared animal, while hurling punches or squealing insults.
Naturally I preferred being at home, where it was safe and where I could hide. My loving parents encouraged me to stand up to them, to fight back, but when I tried everything seemed to go incredibly wrong. So over time I just gave up. Withdrew into myself like a turtle in its shell.
I also had a particular fondness for stuffed animals. My parents travelled a lot, and when they came back they often brought gifts, especially in my younger years. I remembered every country they came from and gave them names based on them. Keisha the Lion from Kenya. Francis the Polar Bear from France. So on and so forth.
When I was 8 or so the bullying was at its peak. I wept in my room, amongst the comfort of my stuffies who smiled at me sympathetically as the bedsheets grew increasingly wet with tears.
I was praying to God, but I knew God wouldn’t answer my prayers.
So I decided to make my own God.
I got out my crayons and a piece of paper and tried to imagine what my God will look like. It was difficult, and my eight-year-old mind took to whipping tentacles and a face that was hidden by the clouds. I drew and redrew, scrapped and tried again. The result was something I was really happy with. My red crayon was almost in stubs, but I had seen with my mind’s eye a beast with a demonic face and bushy mane and horns, thin spaghetti arms like mine, and tentacles instead of legs that whipped and snapped. His three eyes leered out at me through the drawing.
I named him Hamoglobb.
I carried the picture to the top of my bed and pinned it up, and then I arranged my stuffed animals like how I had seen in church. The evening was slanting in, and my room was bathed in red and gold from the dying sun. I stared at the picture above my bed and prayed for peace and safety.
What followed was silence, the respectful kind of silence like in church. It was a solemn moment and everyone knew it.
Then it was broken by the calls of dinner and the complaints of my stomach, and so I abandoned everything and went to eat.
Next morning I was mostly ignored. Most people avoided me; some even apologised. I was pleasantly surprised. For the first time for as far as I could remember I did not come home with bruises on my arms. In fact, I quite enjoyed my day.
I came home to Hamoglobb smiling down at me, and I couldn’t have been happier. I pulled out an ant from my pocket, who had long died of suffering without air. It went up on the wall with scotch tape, a silent black corpse next to red and white.
“I offer thee for you, my Lord,” I said.
I didn’t know what compelled me to say that, but the serene, proud smile of Hamoglobb convinced me I did something right. The next time I was in my room the ant had vanished and my luck had improved. I was given a gold star for good behaviour. That had never happened before. Usually I was berated and scolded and humiliated in front of my smirking peers.
The next day I came home with a rat I caught. Its tail was twitching desperately from side to side, its legs were kicking out in a futile attempt to get free. Holding the rat up next to my God I pulled out a pocket knife and slit its throat, letting the warm blood trickle down my arm. In a fit of impulsivity I smeared some of the blood all over my cheeks.
“I hope you like my offering, oh Lord,”
I pressed the rat to the mouth of the picture. The animal was still squeaking with every breath and struggling for its life. The cartoon mouth opened impossibly wide. Sharp, yellowed teeth oozed with drool. I pressed the head of the rat against its mouth. Its head disappeared into the abyss, followed by everything else, and finally its wriggling tail. Rivulets of crimson dropped down my wall, staining my pillow.
For some reason I felt like it wasn’t enough. I could hear His teeth gnashing as it chewed, like steel mouse traps, the way pink flesh suddenly lined the crudely-drawn mouth and then disappeared again. His scarlet eyes bored down on me. Disappointment. Anger.
So, I slipped the knife under my skin, giggling at the onset of pain and how red it glowed underneath. I ran the knife towards my elbow, and fed the dislodged skin to Hamoglobb, who took it gratefully. My congregation was cheering me on.
I got bolder after that. I felt like I could do anything. My parents noticed of course, and took me to get patched up. The hospital grafted skin from my back onto my wrist, but that was about it. No questions asked. No investigation, no enquiries on who Hamoglobb really was.
In a way I got off lucky. Although offering my skin to Hamoglobb was done in a fit of impulsivity I never dared do it again. I reasoned that doing it too many times would attract too much suspicion.
But I brought home more vermin as offerings. Rats. Cockroaches. The occasional snake. With my determination to appease my lord Hamoglobb I think I was more effective than my local pest control. If I was lucky I even brought home a stray cat.
To seal my bond I carved a bloody cross into the palm of my hand. And whenever I had a bad day I would look at that cross and know everything would be all right.
But that one Monday night even that wasn’t enough. It was raining; lightning slashed the inky-black sky, and the wind was howling and the rain was slamming against the windows. On that particular Monday night I was in a bad mood. I was picked on again despite Hamoglobb’s protection; my lunch was stolen and I spent the rest of the day hungry. To make things even worse I nearly got detention.
Dinner was tense that night. You could hear nothing but the scraping of knives against the plates. I glared at my steak, imagining it to be the faces of my bullies.
At that precise moment my older sister Danielle decided to break the silence. She was tall and her age, and relatively pretty, a petite face framed with auburn curls. She started babbling on and on about her new boyfriend who just got into her and they were going out on a date on Saturday. Something like that. A whole string of babble that just floated in and out of my ears.
My parents’ laughter incensed me. I seethed, wondering why my perfect older sister had such a perfect little life. It was so unfair.
I heard nothing but anger roaring through my ears. I wished my sister was dead, or even better…gone.
I glared at my steak again, wishing it was my sister’s face, and stuffed green peas into my mouth, but when I next looked up the conversation had abruptly…stopped. My parents were quietly eating, not talking.
“Did Danielle go to the bathroom or something?”
I was met with puzzled faces.
“Who are you talking about?”
“Danielle! My sister! Your…daughter!”
“You’ve been our only son as far as we can remember. Are you feeling all right?”
I stared at them, not believing my ears. Both my parents were grinning back at me, like this was all some sort of joke, like Danielle would pop up and laugh at what a fool I was. But though their eyes were sincere, their smile was…strained.
Suddenly my food tasted like sandpaper.
“I’ve got to go,” I said shakily, standing up. “I’ve got homework.”
I turned to go, but their voices floated up to me as I was halfway up the stairs, like an angel choir.
“Thank the Lord, for he will protect us.”
I rounded the corner and went into my room, where the rain was still pounding away at my windows like a heartbeat.
I turned on my bedroom lights.
The room lit up in a pale, sickly glow. But my eyes were drawn to that old drawing scotch-taped to the top of the bed.
For starters it was twice as wide as before. The edges of the paper unfurled beyond the bed.
Then Hamoglobb had changed positions. He was lounging the full width of the paper, completely relaxed. His crimson skin was radiant.
But the most chilling detail was…was my sister, trapped in His hand. She was frozen in fear, her eyes wide and panicky like a rabbit’s, her mouth open in an eternal scream. She was suspended upside down, her hair wild, almost electric, just inches away from His bushy mane and mouth.
I scratched at the drawing in vain, but it was as if she was already drawn inside in crayon.
Guilt hit me on the head. What have I done?
Please my lord Hamoglobb I prayed. Let my sister go.
I glanced hopefully at the drawing instead, only to find that Danielle’s head was fully submerged into His mouth. Followed by the rest of her.
The last of the screams faded away. Blood spilled outside the edges like the legs of a spider. My lord Hamoglobb was grinning back at me in His silly way. Thank you, He seemed to say.
My hands were shaking; my skin was covered in goosebumps. I knew it was all my fault. I knew I had been a horrible brother. All I could think about was her face, that scared, haunted face. It was burned into my mind forever.
Next day—Tuesday—I dreaded going to school. I dreaded seeing the bullies, the teachers that tormented me, the people that made me miserable. Most importantly of all, I wanted to stay home and muse on what I had done the previous night. To grieve what was left of my sister.
Yet the halls were mostly empty. When I walked into my class I found a scattering of people inside, mostly the quiet ones, the shy ones that left me alone most of the time. The atmosphere was kind of grim. Solemn almost, like I was attending a funeral in the church.
Ms Stonestreet walked in. The school principal.
“Dear Lord Hamoglobb…”
Her voice was shaky, but rehearsed. As she spoke, she gestured wildly with her hands. Her eyes were bulging; her smile was strained and forced.
“Excuse me miss,” I said the moment the prayer ended.
“How can I help you, Benjamin?”
Sweat was beading on her face.
“What happened to Brandon, and Shenelle and…and the rest of them?”
She smiled even more uncomfortably. “We got rid of them for you. You never liked them, didn’t you, Benjamin?”
“It is all thanks to our lord Hamoglobb. Praise the Lord!”
And we spent the rest of the day writing essays on how great Hamoglobb really was.
The first thing I noticed when I got out of class was that everything was draped in white cloth. Lockers, tables, water coolers. Somebody had painted bloody crosses on them. Over and over.
Although it was the middle of summer and it was particularly hot the day before, snow was falling as light as a cloud, covering the ground in a soft white blanket. My breath came out foggy as I started my walk back home, although I didn’t feel cold at all.
The way back was decorated with snow sculptures, all looking like Hamoglobb in various poses. His beady eyes smiled as they watched me go home. And each one bore a cross drawn in blood.
Finally I reached my house, standing alone in the middle of the street and bigger than before, partially concealed by snow.
In front of the house was a makeshift fence made out of sharp sticks.
Spiked on each stick was a head.
The head of the bullies.
Yes, I could recognise Brandon and Shanelle and Jonathan and the rest of them. Their faces were too pale and their lips were blue. Their eyes were dug out and snow was collecting in their vacant holes.
Blood was still dripping from where the stick pierced their neck, staining the pristine snow crimson. As I walked past them, instinctively feeling my own neck, they creaked their heads around and gave me serene smiles.
The house was strangely dark and quiet, save for a flickering candle on a makeshift altar. The only other ornament was a giant photorealistic painting of Hamoglobb, lounging on a throne made of skulls. He winked at me as I got nearer. Waved.
Then the silence was broken by chanting, and as I looked around I realised everyone I knew was chanting. My mom. Dad. Principal. Quiet kids. All of them wearing the same white robe and straw slippers with a bloody cross messily painted on the sides.
As I listened, the chants sounded less like human voices and more like hissing. And over and over again:
We love you, oh Lord Hamoglobb. Please forgive us.
For some reason I was tempted to join in. I was tempted to chant, to worship the Lord Hamoglobb, which I had created.
Then the vision was broken, and all at once I saw the nightmares, my head on the stick, my body between His teeth.
Lord Hamoglobb grinned at me. Warm, Beckoning. My skin cracked, and I could see the cross engraved inside. Over and over.
You belong to me He seemed to say.
I forced myself to look away. I ran. Took the nearest cab and forced myself as far away as I could.
He’s always here though.
Every night I see his cross on my walls, no matter which motel I stay in; every night I see Him in my dreams. His ever-growing smile.
He is waiting for me to return.