Buddha Boy

KYLE HAMPTON died today, May 23rd, at 10:25 a.m., from a bee sting. Well, from complications stemming from a bee sting. He was 11 years old and a damn inquisitive little kid. In fact, it’s probably what killed the poor guy.

Kyle had lived in East Tennessee for most of his young life. An orphan from the age of 2, when his parents died in a tragic car accident, he had been in 4 different foster homes since. Most recently, he had been living with Karen and Lee Foster, ironically, in a suburb of Cleveland, TN.

“He was just into everything. His mind went a mile a minute. I mean, Lee and I couldn’t even keep up with him. One second he was asking if they used real plastic in plastic surgery. Next, he was trying to figure out a cure for cancer or a way to stifle the rotten smell in the air around the pulp mill. Kyle was just a real thinker. Too much so, I think.”

Karen spoke to us across a vat of sausage gravy she was preparing in the kitchen of the Rebel Drive-In.

“I was lucky I could get Mel to cover my shift so I could go down to the hospital and identify him, poor little guy. If he had been in school like he was supposed to be, none of this would have happened. He liked to skip. Stay back at the house and study things on his own. Said the teachers couldn‘t teach him anything. I guess today, he just went a little too far.”

Seems young Kyle had captured a large bumblebee and was trying to dissect it’s stinging nodule. Probably to develop a serum to combat the poison.

“Evidently he was highly allergic. We had no idea. The child services people don’t tell us anything. I mean, I feel really bad about all this, but at least we still have Roxanne and Daggett. Besides, it’s not like he was really ours or anything. And things have been kind of tight lately. Money-wise. But Lee and I will both miss Kyle. He was different.”

Already the owner of a bad crew cut and case of adolescent obesity, Kyle was found by the next door neighbor, Kenny Chatham, lying in the row of box bushes that separate their houses.

“He was swollen up to about twice his normal size. Just squatted there in the bushes. I have never seen anything like it. I mean, Kyle was a big kid already, but today, he looked, well, like a little Buddha out there. And there was this whole patch of bees just circling around him. The buzzing. Humming. It was creepy.”

And all this on the highest holy day in Tibetan culture. The birthday of Buddha. The cost of knowledge, once again, trumping life.

Leader of the Pack

THANDIE RENEE BYZANTINE died today, May 6th, at 11:15 am. She was 15, and a sophomore at St. Mary’s High School in the Regal Estates area of Greenwood, Ohio. She is survived by her sister Raven, 11, and her parents, Trinity and Clark Byzantine.

It’s sad really. Not only because she was so young, but because of the way in which she died. A harsh and terrible death I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Dogs. She was eaten by dogs. Not completely, but enough to make her dead. And not the kind of dogs you would expect either. Not Rotweillers or Dobermans or even that really scary kind of dog from The Omen movies. Border Collies. That’s right. A pack of Lassies stole Thandie Byzantine’s young life and never looked back.

“We had jumped the fence in that alley off Payne Street. Same fence we always jumped. Through the Germaine’s yard. We were late. I was getting mad at Thandie because she kept rushing me. I told her we were already late. No need to kill ourselves trying to get to school on time now. That’s when I saw them. From out of nowhere. Four of them. Could have been five. Maybe even six. I don’t even know now. They just…attacked. I ran, but I guess…she must have fallen or something. I couldn’t do anything once they had her. I was going to but…I just couldn’t. It was too late. I went for help, but by the time all the cars came, she was…” Raven broke down while trying to explain the last precious minutes of her sister’s life. There was blood on her NorthFace book-bag and a glazed look in her Isaac Mizrahi framed eyes.

Thandie’s parents were too choked up to comment at this time, but the feeling across the entire neighborhood of Regal Estates is one of shock and horror. Karen Parsons expressed her concern over the incident. “We have no idea how any of this happened. The dogs do not belong to anybody in this neighborhood. I am sure they came from somewhere over in Rocksruff. It wouldn‘t surprise me.”

( *Rocksruff is a less desirable neighborhood to the south of Regal Estates. Many criminals are supposed to live there. In shitty little shacks. They eat chicken bones and chew on leather straps. It is also where children end up when they are kidnapped.)

“I am sure this is a sign of the coming apocalypse. Things like this just don’t happen. Not without a reason. Not without a warning. I am scared.”At this time the dogs have not been found. Although the authorities have put out an A.P.B. warning Regal Estates and surrounding areas of the dangers of these rabid dogs. (But not Rocksruff. They‘ll have to fend for themselves.)

If anyone knows the whereabouts of the canines, they are being asked to contact local authorities. “Do not try to capture the dogs on your own. There is no reward. Don’t even approach them,” said Captain Gary Smalls of the Greenwood Police Department. “I know they look cute, but they are lethal. We don’t want any more dead people.”

The dogs, once taken into custody, will be promptly shot. Thereby ending the threat to Greenwood and Regal Estates. We hope. Unless Karen Parson’s warning about impending doom comes to fruition.

What’s left of Thandie will be buried on Mother’s Day. It is hardly fitting, and our prayers will be with her mother as she remembers the way her oldest daughter used to be. Before the dogs came.