Pip was a young weakling lad with blonde curly hair that sat like a birds nest atop his pale head. Freckles speckled the top of his cheeks and all over his body. He was a work of art that not even his mother could love. That is, his cousin. Poor pip’s mother had the same relation to him as his cousin.

Pip was a scrawny child with hands that could cover his face and a neck too thick to strangle. When he was birthed, he just wouldn’t die. And so, they let him live. He suffered mild retardation so he didn’t know the difference and to be frank, he was indifferent to things beyond his realm of comprehension.

His favorite color was yellow. He collected anything yellow he could find from a mason jar of urine to a fistful of unfortunate toadstools, his room was a blur of many yellows. He wore everything yellow and he dreamed yellow. He even went so far as to dump almost an entire bucket of butter in his grits to make it yellow. But his mother slapped his hand and shoved horrible tasting syrup into his mouth.

The death of Pip was a tearful one and mysterious. He lived an ample life of seven years. Some say it was Grandma Todd’s fault and others say the whole family had it coming.

The pages of the photo album were yellowing. Grandma feared one day Pip would get a hold of it and rip out every page in it. She placed it on the very top shelf, where she thought to be the most inaccessible place to the young one. She didn’t say a word as the toddler looked up at the book with longing eyes and a tooth sticking out from his lip. “I want!” He demanded.

“No!” She said sternly and hobbled over to the kitchen to finish the stew for the family. Pip grew so furious that he snuck into the kitchen and put in his own concoction into the stew: dandelions, daffodils, urine, yellow-capped mushrooms, a full bottle of Grandma Todd’s yellow pills, and dead, dried butterflies.

It goes without saying the family wasn’t going to wake up. Pip seized his opportunity and mozied over to the shelf, looking at what a nice brew the additives made.

He gulped at how high the climb would be. Pip swallowed once more, bit his top lip and put his hand up about as high as he could reach. He stepped up. He did it in a series. Left hand, right hand, left foot, right foot.

He finally plucked the photo album from the top shelf and yelled in victory. That, was the last sound made by the poor kid because right as he held up the book to show off to his snoozing grandmother, the shelf wobbled. Pip tried to climb down and instead was pinned beneath the shelf, screaming for help. None was to be found because his family was dead.

Thus ends the pitiful tale of woe.