I do not own Castle Rock.

If left unchecked, I think it's possible I may own an unhealthy obsession for The Kid.

The Kid

The kid, for that's surely what his outer appearance purported him to be, sat quietly on the unforgiving concrete floor.

Arms and legs folded up and wrapped in upon the central form.

He was tall and lanky, though he didn't appear so at first glance.

He seemed small, or at least average, the way he pushed himself into the smallest space he could find and hunkered there like a lost child.

Then he rose up slowly, kept rising. Until he towered over you.

And you looked up into his staring, depthless eyes.

And felt wonder and the skittering beginnings of confusion and fear.

The kid appeared young. Agelessly so. His face was unlined and pale.

Innocent and lost.

And his eyes, those round, guileless eyes, gave you whisperings of chilling disquiet.

Of what might be hidden behind them, watching from the shadows.

No one really unwanted to have anything to do with him.

They didn't know what to do with him.

He was . . . unnatural.

Disturbing in a way you couldn't quite put your finger on.

For one thing, he never spoke.

You sensed he could, he just chose not to open his mouth.

And that was okay.

In a way, you really didn't want him to.

Because you dreaded what he would say, what terrible knowledge he might impart.

And so, nobody really engaged him, interacted with him.

Truth be told, they tried not to even look at him.

And so he sat.

Still. Unmoving.

Pulling breath in and out of his lungs in deep, even rhythms.

Blinking, slowly blinking, what seemed only once every other eon or so.

Slowly, deliberately.

Like a cold-blooded reptile, holding in stasis.

Waiting.

Waiting for Its next target. Its next prey.

Its next meal.

The fall of man. The rise of the end.

Waiting for something.

Though no one knew just what that was.

They talked about him behind his back, laughed about him.

Mocked him and ridiculed him and made crude jokes.

They called a retard, they called him a freak.

They called him a ghost and fairyboy and wondered aloud if he kept his mouth closed because it was full of shit.

They thought he might have that autism thing or at least be on the spectrum.

If they thought that far in depth.

Which they mostly didn't.

More like that-thing-my-sister's-cousin's-nephew-had, the-one-we-don't-talk-about.

The lesser cruel of them just thought he was weird.

They were whistling through the graveyard of his unprecedented presence, so to speak.

They were disturbed and helplessly angered by him in a way they couldn't express and completely to a loss as to why the former respected prison warden had locked such a helpless, unassuming thing in a cage deep in the forgotten bowels of Shawshank State Prison.

Nobody had really told anybody.

News just traveled.

The boy did not.

Only sat, hunched and silent.

Still and wraithlike.

Waiting.

And watching.

Okay, so I've been actively avoiding rewatching season 1 of Castle Rock or writing about it and, specifically, The Kid.

Because, well, sanity.

And I still haven't entirely figured him out yet.

Has anybody?

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