I beleive I’ve mentioned before that I have two daughters; a child of light and a child of darkness.
My child of light is 9 nine years old, blond, angelic, with fair skin. She is unfailingly kind and sensitive to all living creatures, and mindful of the feelings of others.
My child of darkness is 5 years old. She has flame red hair, bronze skin, and… um glowing eyes. She is, hmmmm. Headstrong? Mischievous? Stubborn? Deeply committed? Very fun loving, and carefree.
Their very existence is somewhat disturbing since neither my wife nor I have have blonde or red hair. It makes me suspicious.
Both of them are children of destiny. A holy man told me that in the future the world will polarize with have gathering behind each of my daughters who will then lead their respective armies in the final battle between good evil in which the world will end. Apparently, I play a tragic role in this future, but supposedly it is not for me to see.
So, you all have that to look forward to.
From these descriptions, you may think you know which is the evil one and which is the good one, but truly, I’m not sure.
Anyway, in the meantime, I’m raising them. Tonight, the wife is playing tennis and I’m working out. Towards the end of my workout a skirmish breaks out between my two daughters. The youngest is trying to steal the schoolbooks of the eldest, while the eldest is resisting.
“Stop fighting!” I say in my authoritarian command voice. “Be nice to each other!”
“Yes Daddy,” says my child of light. “We’re sorry.” She smiles beatifically. My child of darkness glowers. My child of light turns the smile on the child of darkness (and perhaps there is some “see-I-told-you-so” haughty bitchiness in that angelic smile. My child of darkness storms away, and I turn back to my workout.
Suddenly, I am compelled to turn around again for some reason, and I am just in time to see my child of darkness Pearl Harbor my child of light with a cunning sneak attack.
“HEY!” I yell. “I told you to stop. Go up to your room and wait until I come get you.”
She howls, and runs upstairs.
Well, there is no finishing the workout, so I towel off. A few minutes later I make my post workout fruit drink, make it double big, and pour some in a glass for the perpetrator. I head upstairs with the drink.
This is when things get weird. You see, my child of darkness monologues. As I hear speechifying between sobs, I can picture the stuffed animals in her room, lined up in attitudes of attention.
“…And…sob… they don’t…sob…know… sob” (sobs ommitted from here out, but read the following with every third word as “sob” and every sixth word as “sniffle” to get the proper effect)
"Everybody is mean to me. They don’t understand. It’s not right. I just want to be happy. I wish they were nice to me… " and so on and so on. It’s all pretty heartbreaking, at least until it turns to the part where she starts plotting revenge, and promising her stuffed animals that she will get them all for what they did to her. Fortunately, we’re not at the stage yet, so I head it off.
“I brought you an fruit drink ,” She dives under the pillow to hide but then decides I might leave with the drink, so she comes out and accepts it.
“Do you know I sent you upstairs.”
“Yes.”
“Why did I send you upstairs?”
“Because I hit _____ after you told me to stop fighting.”
“That’s right,” I say. “And you know it was wrong to hit your sister, don’t you?”
“No,” she says simply and with conviction.
“It’s wrong, because she’s all you have in this world. You should be loving and nice and take care of each other. That’s what sisters do.”
“Ok,” she says, slightly sobbing, but as I look at her snotty eyes, her glowing eyes and narrow and shift slightly, and for a brief second there is a flash there that says “I don’t know what world you think you’re living in, but I guess I’ll humor you.”
We go downstairs.