One person was a butcher. Before dawn he slaughtered the animals, opened his shop at sunrise, and spent the day. One day, as he was returning home after dusk, he heard a scream in a dark, sheltered place before he knocked on the door. He hurried there. They saw a man stabbed to death. The butcher pulled the knife out of it. He raised the man to help. Blood flowed from his body, his head being cut off. He died a few minutes later. Soon the crowd gathered. They saw the knife in the butcher’s hand. The trial took place. He was sentenced to death.

When death is brought to the scene of execution, he shouts with all his voice:

“O people, by God, I didn’t kill this man.” But, twenty years ago, I killed a person. I was a boatman who took people from the coast to the coast. One day a beautiful girl sat in her boat with her mother. I admired him. Two or three days later they came again. I often see her.

Our eyes were on each other, there were warm feelings for each other. Her father did not treat her well because of her poverty. He did not take the girl and her mother back to my boat. I didn’t see her at all.

Almost three years have passed. One day a young woman sat in my boat with little baby. I suddenly saw her. Yes, that was my beloved. I’m glad.

- Do you remember the covenant? -I said.

- But I’m married. This is my son. - she said.

My heart sank. Ignorance covered my eyes. I approached her. SHe shouted:

- Fear Allah. - said he. SHe began to defend himself. The boy also started crying. My eyes fell upon the child, and I took him up and said:

“Well, tell me otherwise, or your child will die!”

I dipped the baby’s head in water. He started shaking. Then I went out. She closes her eyes with her hands, but she does not agree with impurity. The last time I asked her, she refused. I put the baby’s head in the water until his hands and feet were motionless and he died. I threw his body into the water. It was the turn of the woman. I took off her scarf and grabbed her by the hair and dug her head into the water. No one saw my work.

Time passed, and no one came to investigate the woman or child.

I told myself I was free from punishment.

But the Creator knows everything.

As you can see, I’m still being punished.

I’ve killed innocent people”

It was three years ago when it happened. A wednesday morning, in July. It was only going to get warmer later in the day, songs being whispered through the radio in the waiting room as quiz shows played silently on the TV. I remember it well, I don't think I could ever forget that day. The day I learnt how far the love of a mother goes.

Belinda was absent today, in fact she hadn't shown up for work yesterday either, so I was doing the rounds instead, delivering lunch to all the patients. It was the last room on the fifth floor, a private ward. The corridor seemed to stretch on and on, the lights flickering on and off. The only sound was the squeak of the trolley's wheels, bouncing off the walls. I reached the door, finally. My hand came up to rapt three times on the door, when something stopped me.

It was the smell that hit me first. A purtid and foul odour breached my nostrils, making me gag, tears pricked my eyes. The stench of rotten eggs and festering flesh was overwhelming. My hand graced the handle, but it was the sound that stopped me this time. With my ear on the door, I could only make out faint whisperings.

'You'll be okay, oh my sweet baby boy. I won't let them take you, oh my child, what did they do to you? Don't worry mummy is here, she will never let them touch you, never ever will I let them take. Oh my sweet baby.'

The whispers were broken up by sob, and shuddering breaths. It was definently a woman crying, her wails sounded like a child dragging their nails down a chalk board.

Every instinct was telling me not to. I mean it's simple isn't it? I feel like the next victim in a horror movie, like there was an audience telling me not to go in there. To turn around. To notify security and leave it to them. But I understand what it's like to be in that situation now, your not rooted to the spot, unable to move. But rather your actions are limited. Either you move forward, or your stuck, to scared to go on.

A hand covering my nose, and the other on the handle, I push the door open.

What. The. F*ck.

The smell is ten times worse, invading every sense. Threatening to send me to my knees. But it's what I saw, that made me vomit. Upturning my stomach all over the tiled floor.

A body lay on a cot in the centre of a room, if it could even be described as a body. It had to have been dead for days. The skin wall sallow, and pale, it's arms bloated and oozing pus from stab wounds. Nails, iron nails had been hammered down into it's fingers and toes, dried blood staining the sheets brown. The stomach had be torn open, the guts spilling out onto the floor. The face is still etched into my eyelids, always there even when I close my eyes.

The head was balding, what little hair was left was greasy, the black locks slicked on the rotting skin of his scalp. The mouth was agape, the teeth were missing, the toung grey and swollen. Lips peeled back, bleach white, a frothy foam ran down one side of his mouth, trickling down his fat neck and onto the pillow. The other corner of his mouth was crusty and brown. His eyes were missing too, the nerves pulled out through the sockets.

A woman sat on the chair beside him, her mouth was bloody, she was sobbing, as she lifted one of the eyeballs and popped in her mouth, chewing the jelly like organ. It was disgusting. One of the womans fingers trailed up the patients mouth, the foaming spit coated her finger, which she then licked, before sucking the saliva of the corspe off of her hand like it was chocolate syrup. The bloodshot eyes turned to face me.

'Don't take my baby away, please.' Her voice wavered out, "he's just a baby."

The 'baby' had to be thirty years old. I backed away, there were other bodies in the room, my mind could barely comprehend Belinda's pink scrubs.

'Please, he, he, just began falling apart, so I tried to keep him together.' Her hand wandered over to the nailed fingers, and with a snap, she pulled the thumb off of the corspes hand, and a flow of pus splatterd the sheets. I retched again.

She popped the finger into her mouth. I could hear her teeth grinding against flesh.

'I'm a mother, please, I-I j-ust wanted him to be a p-part of me, forever.' Her words were punctuated with hiccups and I heard the distinct crunch of a human nail.

So I did what any sane person would do, scream my head off and run through the open door. In a flurry of security guards and many shouted profanities, the woman was detained. I remember her screaming at me, blaming me. She's insane.

That was the last I saw of her, until now. You see, I met her three years ago, her son died three years ago, she got arrested three years ago, but only eight months ago, I had a son of my own.

A beautiful baby boy, who had gone missing. I began to understand how that woman went crazy over her son's death, with my own child missing, I was reduced to a self destructive mess. I thought I would never see my baby again, and then of course, I recieved a package.

Pulling out the blood baby blanket, I slowly unbundled the little corspe, my child was ripped limb from limb, maggots eating away at his decaying form, I was losing what little I had left of him.

My shaking hand brought his head to my lip, I began to slather his scalp with my saliva, chewing away at his face. Consuming him, so he could be a part of me.