The boy's house

Borges says in his memoirs that he was not aware of the existence of evil because he did not leave the house. I also did not leave the house; I spent my childhood setting traps for cats and sewing stitch after stitch on my face, finishing my full share of watching television and playing video games while waiting for my father to return from the register of absences or the few short visits to the aunts and maternal uncles. I threw bones to the mother's fear and her obsessions in the backyard and narrated the loneliness, unaware that it was loneliness. At four, I tried to hang my little sister using the white living room curtain (my sister still reminds me of this), and at six, I tried to burn someone with my age who dared and pulled the lights from me. When I came out of the cage, I was told I was black and roasted inside in a way that made me keep my observations about the evil of the world to myself and only come out for sleep.