Apex Publications discussion

I like that this story leaves a lot open. The narrator says that God is speaking them, but it He? There's no evidence that He is. The child digs up the backyard for more than two years without finding the present supposedly left by God. It's the whole unreliable narrator, which makes me wonder who is speaking the child. A demon? Insanity? A vengeful god who would want to hurt an innocent child?

To me this story is about the innocence of youth, the ability of children to believe and how sometimes the cynicism of adults can spoil it.

The question remains however: is the voice God or the Devil? Perhaps it is God and his gift to the child is eternal life in paradise. On the other hand, most (if not all) sects of Christianity view suicide as a sin, so maybe the Devil tricked the boy into committing a mortal sin. Or perhaps the kids is just fucking nuts.

I read this very differently than Brian did, as a case of straight-up mental illness, told from the inside, and how the child's existing religious frame of reference for what is happening complicates the child's treatment and ultimately leads to her demise. I don't recall offhand whether there's any indication in the story of the child's gender, but I read it picturing a girl.

This was another hard one for me to read. Not quite as hard as Richard's story, but it struck close to home. I was brought up in a religious tradition that believes that demons are a thing, just as real as the keyboard I'm typing this on, and that demons do possess people. This seriously complicates the task of sorting mental disorders from demon possession, and since I have a family history of mental illness...well, enough about me. Back to the story.

The faith that the parent inoculated the child with, probably under the impression that it was the right thing to do for the health of her immortal soul, ended up being her undoing. Had she not believed that it was the voice of God she was hearing, she might not have been so persistent in her delusions, and she might have been more willing to take her medication, or at least less willing to follow the voices into her grave.

This story, to me, was the most blunt example in the anthology of the theme "Faith Kills."

This story to me was a vivid example of how blind faith can be a bad thing. This child believed so much and would not be detoured by anyone for any reason. I think this story is a representation of how sometimes we can have too much faith and that maybe we should stop to "hear" what someone else is trying to tell us before we destroy ourselves with what we believe.