Red Journal: Curiosity Kills

Curiosity kills the cat…


I remember choosing the hand I wanted to write with, whether to write “a” with the hook or not, annoying the mean girl at preschool, and building sandcastles at recess with my two best friends. 

I remember coming home to my loving family and my stuffed Elmo after an afternoon of fun, and the inconvenience of nap time—why did I have to sleep if it was daytime? I mumbled to myself. 

I remember lying peacefully in my sunlit room, thinking, dreaming, wondering, and then becoming aware of my body for the first time.

With bright eyes I turned my ABC’s into words. With eagerness I learned to read and write… and soon type. Too soon, the light from the computer screen darkened my gaze. 

I was Eve and I had tainted Eden. I hid in the garden through my teenage years, looking over my shoulder as I attempted to quench my thirst with the fruit I found—surely God was searching for me in hatred. He would crush my head when He found me.

THE PAINTING

Somewhere, a Boy Child stands in murky water. He wrestles a Lamb under, submerging its head. Drowning, the Lamb weakly flails its legs against the Boy Child. The violence happens silently—apart from the bubbling of the Lamb’s breath breaking the water’s surface—under the light of the moon and the glint of the Boy Child’s eerie Mask.

The Lamb is the Boy Child’s innocence. The Mask is one of dark curiosity. Perhaps the Boy Child himself is also innocent, but forced by the Mask to carry out this killing against his will, or even unknowingly. Perhaps the Boy Child sees himself in the Mask and chooses to kill the Lamb for his own pleasure. It is uncertain whether one or both of these accounts is reality, for regardless, the Mask hides the true nature of the Boy Child’s face.