Another 300-a-day Flash Fiction.

Defining evil had been a dilemma for him since a young age. Was it murder? Was if theft? Was evil just another way to explain hatred?

He knew ‘evil’ was at work in the stories he saw on the news about people killing other people, about world leaders torturing their own people and he knew evil definitely had a part to play in the wars he’d studied in his history classes. But faced with the issue of identifying exactly what it was at the age of nine – well that was a whole other story.

He asked his Mother for advice and she assured him it was quite simply a lack of God. Satisfied with this answer, he based his short assignment on this, god the grade he wanted and thought little more of it again until many years later.

When his own daughter was stolen from the world, many years after he has last thought of his Mother or of a God and more years still since he had set foot into a church, he was faced again with that question.

“You have to face him and forgive him,” his wife pleaded. “Face and forgive, Eric. It’s the only way we can move on.”

As he sat opposite the face of evil, separated only by a glass pane, he could muster only one syllable.

“Why?”

The face said nothing. It just stared emptily downwards, not even as though trying to search for answers. There was a looming silence and Eric decided, after a moment or two, that he was wasting his time. Before he could stand up though, the face spoke.

“I’ve asked God for forgiveness.  It’s probably easier for God to forgive though, than for you. I am sorry.”

“I won’t ever forgive you. I hope you rot in hell.”

Eric stood and turned to leave.

“Then you, sir, will live as empty as life as I.”

He ignored the jibe and left.

For the first time in many years, on his way home, he stopped off at the cemetery. He stood by his Mother’s headstone and spoke softly.

“Love isn’t a lack of, God, Mum. It’s a lack of love. And I’m sorry.”