Last Updated on July 30, 2008
Once upon a time, there was a child with her mother, walking along a dirt road. It had just rained, and the mist in the air brushed delicately upon the mother and daughter as they trekked through the countryside. Their journey passed by some mud puddles freshly created by the rain. As they walked, they came upon a stranger standing by the side of the road, on the adjacent grassy knoll. The mother and daughter cast their eyes downward; the stranger smiled, revealing a cavernous vacuity for his front teeth. He stared intently at the mother and daughter, both of whom could feel the piercing look upon them from the uninvited stranger.
Suddenly, without warning, the stranger rushed to the young girl, scooped her up into his arms, and carried her off of the dirt road onto the grassy area, where he just as swiftly, but gently, placed her upon the wet grass. Too startled to cry, the little girl was lying prone, staring straight up at the bright blue sky. She remained quiet, too frightened to move, too paralyzed to scream. The mother, too, had been overtaken with such surprise at the suddenness of the short-distance kidnapping, that it was not until her daughter had been gently placed upon the grass that she let out a shriek of fear, anger, and tremulous indignation with such force of relief, that it caused the stranger to stumble backward, almost tripping over the little girl. In the course of profane invectives spewing ferociously from the mother’s mouth, the stranger declared, “But madam, I saved your child’s life! She could have tripped and fallen face flat into one of the muddle puddles, and drowned! You should thank me for saving her life!”