Playing God

She said that killing her baby was like playing God. The ultimate rush. I was confused by the whole thing and kept mentally referring back to that David Duchovney movie. She didn't seem the least bit disturbed by what she had done. No pesky morals getting in the way. No bell going off inside her head saying, "Hey! You just killed your baby!" None of that.

If anything she seemed kind of proud about it. Almost euphoric. She asked me if I had ever done it, and I said no. When pressed to give an explanation of why, I told her simply, I could never have a child. That seemed to satisfy her. I guess in her mind, you have to create the child in order to develop some satisfaction from uncreating it.

She had no idea how sickened I was listening to her.

It was amazing that anyone found out. I'd known she was pregnant, but I didn't know she was that far along. She'd had the child in her apartment, and I had happened by to see if she wanted to go to a movie that night. That's when I found her lying in the middle of the floor, holding her dead child in her arms, cooing to it.

When the police came to take her away, she insisted that the child had not suffered. She had nurtured it for several days before she had drowned it. Fed it nice, the child never wanted for anything. I resisted the urge to suggest possibly childhood. She pointed out that the water was quite warm. Very pleasing to the touch.

The police officers looked at each other in amazement. They say that you hear everything on this job, but I'm pretty sure they had never had someone insist that she'd acted humanely by having warm water in which she submerged her only child.

The trial didn't take long. It captured surprisingly little attention from the nation. There were terrorists hogging the front page, what did another crazy mother who drowned her kids matter? It seemed that every other week another woman drowned her children.

When her lawyers proposed the idea of an insanity plea, she wouldn't let them. She told them that she didn't want her daughter to grow up thinking that she was crazy. She couldn't do that to her only child. The lawyers just stared at her in disbelief as she insisted that her daughter not think she was crazy.

At first, they thought she was just playing the part of the insane mother, but soon it became obvious that she had no idea that her daughter was dead, and even less knowledge of the fact that she had done it. After consulting with the judge, the prosecutor agreed to a sentence of life in a mental institution.

That was many years ago. I've grown up now and have a family. I'm a successful comedian, an occupation that everyone told me growing up that I was suited for. Lately though it's become hard. How do I maintain a happy outlook on life, knowing that there are people like her. Cursed to go through existence with a fucked up mindset. And the fact that they don't know it, makes it even harder to grasp.

I'm not going to take the clichéd way out and blame God. That's too easy. I don't know if God intended for her to be the way she is, or if He intended for her to kill her child, as part of some grand master plan. I am not even going to try to understand her.

I heard that in her later years, she cried out for mercy. That she could be heard in her room screaming out to God for forgiveness. I wonder also if she's sincere. How can she be remorseful if she doesn't realize what she's done? Is it a plea just because she feels that it's expected? Or is she even able to understand that idea? Who knows what is going on in that mind of hers?

Maybe she realizes she's going to die there, and this is just a result of the looming death mentality that grips death row inmates. Seemingly all death row inmates find religion at the end. Facing death what more can you do? Might as well "find" God, just in case.

All I know is that I cry for her every year. I don't know why, but I do. This is a woman, perhaps I could have made a life with. At least, I had thought so. I wonder if it's wrong for me to thank God that she did this before I got with her.

I visit her daughter's grave and put flowers on them every year on her birthday. People have asked me why, but I don't have an answer. And before I leave, I lean over and place flowers on her own grave as well. My wife doesn't know why I do this every year. And I haven't really been able to explain to her the sad story. For now she assumes that this is an old girlfriend. When the time comes, as well as the words, I'll tell her. But right now I can't explain it.

I don't think anyone would understand if I could.