My child died as expected. The child was four or five years old, not too big, not too bright. My motive for the murder is still unclear. In interviews I have given various reasons, including psychopathy, drugs, abusive parents, societal factors, impending hair loss, impotence, and unrequited love. In an attempt to be more honest, I would now add fear and hatred to the list.

I now understand that the child was a work of art, and that my approach to the child was fundamentally flawed. At the time I conceived of it as a sort of tomato, something soft and fleshy and sliceable. Now, however, I realize that it was as a classical statue, whose limbs should be accidentally broken, whose facial features should erode over time. I humbly concede my error.

I am not saddened or disturbed by the event, but it would be accurate to state that I have detected a certain poignancy in the situation.

I beheld the child at first with understandable detachment. While possessing certain human characteristics, the child was nevertheless a mere mockery of humanity, an obvious toy. What stories I'd been told!--that these frail, detailless models eventually metamorphose into full-fledged humanity; that they are blank slates to be scribed with experience; that I was once an automaton of this sort. Ludicrous! I certainly had no recollection of existing in this state, of possessing any less rationality or intelligence than I do now.

At first I found the theory amusing; but like an old joke too often retold, the child's mere presence began to grate on me. I began to view it as a disgusting parody of my existence as a human being. Still, I treated the child no worse than I had...

Other children? Absolutely not. Under no circumstances did I allow the child to mingle with other children. My reasons, however, stemmed not from some ridiculous puritanism, but from simple pragmatics: I cannot tell children apart. They all look alike to me. If I had allowed the child to mix with a group of other children, I would have been unable to recognize it again.

At the beginning? No, I never harbored destructive fantasies about the child, not for any significant length of time, until much later. I simply didn't think about the child that often. After all, the child kept mostly to itself, asking occasionally for bread or water. By and large I provided what it requested.

[to be continued]