The story began on a cool Autumn day. Not a typical day for me as on this day I actually had friends to play with. All kids from the neighborhood came to the wooded lot next to my house to play.

There was Michael, a year younger than I at eight, and his sister, Barbara, who was around my sister's age, six. Although their back yard was attached to mine, we weren't close. Then there was Adam, my closest friend, plus three or four more kids playing that day from around the neighborhood. We were all having a good time playing hide and seek.

I never had a lot of friends growing up. I guess I was fundamentally flawed. I don't know if it was the fact that my mother was only fifteen when she had me and that she raised me for three years by herself with the money she got from the government.

No, not welfare, but life insurance from the U.S. Marines. You see while my mother was five months pregnant with me, Dad was killed in Vietnam. I was born soon after and my mother cried on my shoulder. I was her little teddy bear to comfort her through the cold and lonely nights.

My mother poured her pain and sadness into me, and I soaked it all up like a sponge. Then at the tender age of three, the life insurance money ran out and Mom met a man who didn't want kids. I was sent to a foster home and stored away like in the book "Flowers in the Attic."

Now fatherless and motherless, I found myself in a foster home where I was abused physically and mentally daily. Only thing I can say about my foster father is he was afflicted with a demonstrative sickness........

I got out of jail there two years later and went to another foster home.
My new mother had just lost an eight year old girl whom she had been caring for the last five years. She had been hurt badly by this. I think it was a car accident or something. She was older and had no love left to give.

I was lonely and friendless there. Then came the opportunity to be adopted and I went to another home at age seven. Yes I had been bounced around a great deal and I was emotionally scarred as well. At this point I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by life. I wasn't capable of giving much and my parents were not the understanding type.

That pretty much gets me to where we are now. We were playing in the wooded lot next to my home. Adam had discovered that he could hide himself underground. With a little help from a friend you could dig a hole and bury yourself and breathe through these hollow wooden reed type things that grew nearby.

At such a young age you don't realize how dangerous such things could be. I helped him dig the hole and talked to Adam. I asked him why he wanted to bury himself he said he liked it under there. I said he shouldn't do it. Something was telling me this wasn't a good idea. I told him I didn't have any friends because of the life that I had and he promised to be my friend my very best friend.

His last words to me were, "Just don't forget me."

"Don't worry, I won't", I said.

Soon after I covered the tracts by jumping up and down on top of the dirt packing it down so it looked like the rest of the dirt on the beaten path.

I was picked to be it and soon forgot all about Adam and his hiding place.
Our game of hide and go seek was combined with tag so you had to find them and then catch them. I was pretty slow and I couldn't catch anybody so I was perpetually it.

I don't know how much time had passed when Adam's mom showed up looking for her son.

I can still remember the fear in her eyes as she asked me, "Adam was supposed to come home for lunch an hour ago. Do you know where he is?"

I thought about it for a second. How could I tell this panic stricken woman that I buried her son then forgot all about him and then try to explain he was safely breathing through a hollow wooden tube. I quickly devised a plan.

"No I haven't seen him", I said.

But she didn't believe me.

"Was he here?" she asked.

"Yes", I said.

"Where were you playing?", she asked.

"Over there by the fence", I said.

"Take me to where you were playing."

I did as she asked.

"What were you guys doing?"

"Digging in the dirt", I said

As she stood over the shallow hiding place I wondered if she could possibly guess that I had buried him where she stood....

She did not.

My plan was simple if not very cowardly. I would dig him up after she left and make sure he was all right. Then let him go home to his mom.

I watched her walk away and it appeared as though she was sobbing uncontrollably, but I couldn't tell from behind.

Then the kids I was playing with asked me why I had lied?

"I didn't lie", I said.

At that age, I guess you don't realize that omitting something is as bad as telling a lie.

Barbara, the young girl of six or seven said, "No he got out. I saw him."
What Barbra probably didn't know is that he had used the being buried a few times that day and had reemerged once and then been reburied again and she didn't know.

"Where is he now then?" I asked.

"He must have gone home." She said.

That convinced my friends that I hadn't lied, but I still wasn't sure.

"Maybe he's still buried. Can you guys help me check and make sure he isn't?" I asked.

What happened next surprised me. I was thinking they would want to make sure no harm would come to Adam and help me check.

"No", they said.
Guess they didn't want any part of it. Can't say I blame them looking back now.

Well I went over to the spot and started digging, but he wasn't there, so I assumed Barbara was correct and he had gotten out and when his mom got home, she was relieved to find him there. What I didn't know at this time was that I was looking in the wrong place.

I wish I could say the story ended there. It would have ended sooner if I had told the truth.

Soon it started to rain. We all headed to our perspective homes to seek shelter from the storm. It was thundering and lighting something fierce. My little sister knew something was amiss. She is extremely bright.

She stood in the back corner of the house by the window facing the wooded lot.
The wind, thunder and lightning roared. Her screams pierced the daytime sky and turned it into night. She stood with fear and trembling somehow knowing the fury of the Lord was about. I remember giving her a hug and telling her it was alright.

Later after the storm dissipated I went outside. I had so much fun earlier that I didn't give any thought to Adam. Like I said earlier I never had any friends. I was anxious to rekindle the day and I went to ask Michael, the boy in the house behind me; if he wanted to come out to play.

He came out to play and we went over to the vacant lot. There were many of those hollow wooden tubes around and Michael began pulling them out of the ground. Instinctively I told him not to. He continued any way. He finally set upon one that he couldn't pull out of the ground. He pulled and pulled we couldn't free it. That was strange we thought. Michael then went over and found a fresh plant with the hollow tube and pulled it out of the ground root and all.

He questioned this and I explained to him how we used the hollow sticks to breath when we were hiding underground.

"Want to dig and see if anyone's here?" I asked.

Seemed like a crazy question.

Michael said, "No."

Michael then quickly grabbed the stick and it came free quite easily.
We stood there looking at the stick in amazement. One minute both of us pulling on it couldn't free the stick, the next it slid right out with almost no effort. Hard to believe we could be so stupid. When we looked down at the path we could see the ground had cracked a little. I thought it was from pulling on the stick.

Then came the bone chilling scream. I thought it came from the distance.

Did you hear that?" Michael said.

"Yes. It sounded like it came from over there." I said. I pointed off in the distance through the woods."

Michael just gave me a terrified look and ran all the way home.

Well I forgot about Adam after that. I didn't realize what had happened at the time, and I'm not sure if Michael did either.

About six months later they began clearing the lot next door to build a house.
The bull dozer uncovered something and I was in the back yard playing. I could see the horrific look on the machine operator's face. I was in the back yard playing so he was quiet about what he had found. I hadn't put two and two together at this point.

Later the next day when the family had returned from the store a policeman came to question my father and took him over in that direction. He came back quickly and I could hear him say he didn't know anything about it. Then my Dad gave me a puzzled look,
"Oh well", he said.

Later I saw all the police line fencing off the area. I didn't know what to make of it.

A Year later, on a warm spring day; I took a walk over to Adam's house. After all hadn't Adam promised to be my very best friend? I knocked on the door completely unaware at least on a conscious level what had happened to Adam. His Mom was vacuuming the stairs and I could see a baby in a walker in the background.

"Can Adam come out to play?" I asked.

Her first reaction was anger.

"Do you think that's funny? Who put you up to this?", she asked. As she opened the door and looked around outside to find perspective hidden children waiting to get a rise out of a vulnerable women.

"No. I was just hoping Adam could come out to play", I said. I glanced up the stairs that were directly behind her hoping to see Adam bounding down them.
She looked behind her at the stairs to look where I was looking and she instinctively knew what I was hoping to see. She immediately burst into uncontrollable tears.

Her husband came in from the next room and immediately gave her a hug and began comforting her. Looking back now they must have really been in love to withstand something like that.

"Look we have this beautiful baby now," he said.

"I know. I could just see Adam running down the stairs to go out and play", she said.

The husband broke off the embrace and turned towards me.

"What's wrong?", I asked.

"Adam ran away." he said.

I asked a lot of questions. I tried to offer solutions.

"Maybe he's at a friend's. Did he pack a bag?" I asked.

Then all at once I became a suspect.

Adam's mom came toward the door. She was hysterical again.

"I talked to you that day, and I knew you were lying."

Her husband pulled her away and they talked in a whisper.

"I knew he was lying", she said again.

The husband came to the door.

"Adam is missing and we think you have something to do with it."

"I didn't help him run away", I said. Not knowing in the few minutes that I had been standing at the door that they had come to terms with accepting the fact that their son had not run away, but had been buried alive and that I had something to do with it.

"You had better leave", he said.

I did just that. I was now more confused than ever.

I have the best Mom ever as far as understanding stuff. I told her what had happened and that Adam's parents has accused me of helping him run away.

"Did you help him run away?"

"No", I said.

"Then don't worry about it."

I didn't worry either. Moms can protect their children and she always has. Come hell or high water she has.

Later that night my Dad's business phone was ringing and I answered it.

It was her. The women who, at this point wanted me to burn in hell for all of eternity. I'm sure that when I die she will be waiting for just that.

She wanted to speak to my mother. Why is it when you're a child, no matter what you do on this earth, they want to speak to your mother? With all the things I've done that she knows about. How could she still love me?, but she does. For that there can be no doubt.

I only listened to one side of the conversation. I only remember my mother saying.

"Because, I know he wouldn't do that."

Then I think Adam's mother said,

"You better hope he didn't, because if he did, I will be waiting for eternity for justice." at this point my mother burst into tears and slammed the phone down several times. I think she realized that I was at fault to some degree, but she knew my heart and knew I was not capable of cold blooded murder. She also knew I was capable of extreme stupidity.

My mother told me never to go to Adam's house again and she never again spoke to me about it. I did go there a few more times. They answered the door, but never really said anything. Most times they didn't answer at all.

I guess the obvious question is how did I discover what had happened. Since my mother left me when I was three and I loved her very deeply so I spent a lot of time looking back. I was always trying to remember, to recapture the past and love lost, an insane amount of time. That constant behavior kind of trains your mind to look back all the time.
I was constantly re-evaluating past events.

I asked myself many times if this really happened. I believe it did. I'm well aware it could be a fixed delusion. I will leave it for you to decide. Welcome to, "My Nightmare."

God forgive me, if this is true.
Here is a Villanelle I wrote about this event. Called" Twisted Faces".

Twisted faces in hiding places.
Listen to sound of screaming ground.
Rain poured down and washed all traces.

Reality's paces tied imagination's laces.
Mother's tears surround as they fall down.
Twisted faces in hiding places.

Buried in stacks of cold cases.
Were I caught he would have been found
Rain poured down and washed all traces.

Now I'm not in God's good graces.
Fear overwhelms my heart all 'round.
Twisted faces in hiding places.

Children fit in very small spaces.
I can't go back from lies I'm bound.
Rain poured down washed all traces.

I somehow covered all my bases.
Mother's great prince could have been crowned.
Twisted faces in hiding places.
Rain poured down and washed all traces.