She loved to sing. In the shower, in the classroom, anywhere there was someone to hear her she would sing. She was a ray of sunlight then, she would glow with the innocence and joy of youth. She was the perfect little girl, in every way. She had a gift, though, she could understand. When people told her about the second world war, she would ask questions that nobody could answer. At seven she was smarter then people twice her age. When she would talk to people they would shake their head in disbelief. “That girl has a future,” they’d whisper “someday people will write about her in history books.”

The little girl had a secret, however. She had always know how things would end. She didn’t talk about it, she just knew. At first she assumed that it was an over active imagination, and that she was just a little smarter then the kids her age. So she would sigh and begin to sing again. But as she turned eight, and later, ten, she realized that not only did she know how things were going to end she knew why. And the little girl began to get scared.

One day the art teacher called the little girl’s parents. “This little girl is scaring her classmates.” the art teacher whined. The parents had gotten this call before, when the little girl had talked about gas chambers, and people deserving to die. They began to tell the teacher that they would stop her from reading the big history text books on her father’s shelf, and tell her that no one had the right to kill. But the art teacher didn’t care about gas chambers, or text books, “She is drawing pictures of people bowing down to a girl in the sun.” The teacher was disturbed by this little girl and she tried to make that obvious “She has her classmates line up and tells them that someday that the leaders would make them do that, and that their parents won’t protect them.” The little girl’s parents had never had their child act like that. But the teacher wasn’t through, she had one more thing to complain about the little girl “And, your child, she says that love isn’t real. She says that those who love are weak and the weak must be made strong. She....Is so fucking smart. If she would only drop things, understand that the world isn’t such a cold place. But she is so, cold, that when she speaks everyone hears.”

The parents told the art teacher that they would punish the little girl. When she got home from school they sat her on the couch and told her they had something to say. “Honey we love you.” they began but the little girl cut them off with a wave of her hand.

“No you don’t.” said the little girl, her voice taking a sad resigned air. “Grandpa loved me, and he is dead. My friends loved me, but they are dead. You don’t love me, and I don’t love you. I think you are nice people, but I don’t love you. That is okay, I don’t want to hurt you, I just don’t love you. I don’t love anyone, really.” The little girl had a funny look on her face. A sad look, as though knew that her life would be hard. She was in almost a trance with her body hard and cold to the touch, and she gave a sigh, that sounded like she was old and bitter, recalling happier days. Her next words were hardly audible, yet they seemed to echo around inside her parents head. “My friends say there is no god. My friends say that they are them only ones who love me, and they aren’t lying, they love me to much to lie.”

Her mother began to worry. The little girl was to smart for her own good. She sent the little girl to her room, and told her that she wasn’t allowed to read, for a week. Then the mother called the doctors. The doctors wanted to see the little girl, the next day. The mother knew that the little girl’s birthday was the next day, but thought that seeing the doctors was more important then a cake.

The next day the little girl saw the doctors. they poked her with needles and asked her prying questions. The little girl told the doctors that she didn’t trust them, and her friends hated them. So the doctors gave her pills. She didn’t want the pills, so the little girl threw them down the toilet. And asked if she could have a cake. Her parents said no. The little girl never had another birthday party.

When the little girl was 12 she became darker, hating the world and the people in it. “someday they will all pay.” she told anyone who asked. and then a few days before her birthday her pictures, and stories began to come true. Planes blew fiery holes into buildings, and people called it WWIII. Children lost their parents and had no one to protect them. When she saw the pictures on the TV she laughed, and her dad yelled at her for not being sad. But she knew that the countdown had began and no one could stop it. Except for her. That night she heard a song on the radio, the same song she sang so many years ago. But that song no longer made the little girl smile. She didn’t even care anymore.

Today the little girl isn’t so little anymore. She knows that people are killing the world and no one can stop the madness. People don’t like people who want to help them, she reasons, they would rather be stuck in the filth they live in today then admit they were wrong and need help. She understands things that no one else does, and has given up trying to explain to them. She hates everything, and waits for change.

I don’t sing anymore either.