Bogleech.com's 2013 Horror Write-off:

"Little Johnny Sent a Card"

Submitted by Angela Shaver

John is the most stereotypical cranky geezer. The balding old guy that comes out of his home just to yell “Get off my lawn!”, that’s John. I was pretty young when my little brother was born. So that meant many days of driving Mama crazy with my tantrums. My little brother liked to eat paint. Many tots do too. However, his gnawing on my walls was unacceptable to my little princess brain at the time. He also ate all my chalk. Pretty much anything he could get his tiny grubby mitts on, went in his drooling little mouth.

One morning he ate the head of my piggy bank. My piggy bank was shaped like a cat. A patchwork cat actually. I named her Patchy. She was the prettiest kitty ever; the purple and blue patches looked so wonderful with her black head. I made her myself, so she was extra special to me. I pouted and began to bawl at this point. “Moo…ommy!” I shouted, “Johnny’s being a real monster!”. But all I got from Mama and Papa were “Boys will be boys.” and “Babes do these sorts of things honey, please be nice to your little brother.” I could not stand this. I cried and cried some more, until Mama gave me a cookie. I was not fully satisfied with this bribe. But the one implicit rule of childhood was never say no to a cookie.

I kept Patchy anyways. I suppose I would have had to open her anyways if I ever wanted that little treasure of coins. I dropped pennies into Patchy until she was so heavy I could barely pick her up. My poor piggy bank never did get a new head. I tried to fix her, but none of the heads ever looked just right. I thought my brother was the vilest creature in the land for some time because of this.

It is funny how I learned to get along with John as we grew up. He sent me this cute card recently. It really cheered me up, because I had been down in the dumps for the last week or so. It’s really hard to get on with your life after a funeral. A speeding truck had run over her. Poor Patchy.