Little Ones

The pitter-patter of tiny feet. A sensation a little like nostalgia and a lot like a night terror. Cherub voices in the gloom. Listen. “Play with us.” “Don’t go. We love you. We love you very much.” “Insides on the outside!” “Games are fun when you’re dead!” “Spleens, spleens, the magical fruit — the more you eat, the more you eat, the more you eat, the more you eat, the more you eat…” By the time you hear the twinkling laughter, it is already too late.

What is it about the little ones? What is it you find so disturbing, sweetling? Tiny replicas of yourself. Is it the notion of purity corrupted? Is it the thought that if something so pure could be taken, what chance have you? Or is it something else? Children are not bound by the complex web of morals that compile in the minds of adults. They are closer to the primeval soup of the womb, closer to the id, closer to having gills and the symmetry of fish, closer to the void of non-entity. Their cruelty is so horrifically innocent.

In Japan, the people say “gaki”, and they mean a brat. In a game of tag, the one who is “it” is the gaki. The children run and laugh. Most don’t realise this is deadly practice. The gaki. The demon children. Similar phenomenon can be found around the globe. Some are the ghosts of the young, full of the titanic furies only children can have. Some are demons of a larval state. And some supernatural predators simply enjoy wearing the forms of the little ones.