Johnny suddenly threw himself down rolling about mumbling incomprehensibly. 

                “What’s this guy’s story?” The young man with freckles asked as they approached the door with the little slot in it. 

“I’m not too sure of the whole story, but I know he ended up here because he cut his own tongue out with a pair of scissors.” 

The new guy, stood there rolling his own tongue against the roof of his mouth with a look of pain creased across his features. 

I remember when he first got here he kept writing the words, life and death in the tongue, everywhere he went. That is, before he finally snapped. Then they put him here in the solitary wing.”

They don’t know…they don’t know…they don’t understand,” Johnny mumbled with what little he had left in his mouth.

 

---

 

                “Now you hold that soap in your mouth until I tell you, you can spit it out Johnny,” his mother spoke sternly, standing over him with apron tied neatly around her neck. This was one of the very few times Johnny had let a curse word slip out near his mother. School was another story and a whole different place. But around his mother…well that was a different story. He had learned at a very young age how powerful words could be, and how they could affect people-especially his own situations- usually for the worst.

                “You know what the bible says. Life and death are in the power of the tongue.”

                He thought deeply about those words as he spit that soap out for the final time.

                Johnny was a shy young boy and when he was in school. You see he was one of the kids that never asked questions.   His father taught him through silence and powerful words-only stupid people ask questions-he was already learning that he didn’t want to be a stupid kid. So when he was at recess that very next day instead of asking his teacher where the bathroom was located he walked quietly away from the group of kids playing and found some brush.

                Johnny Peckerhead peed in the weeds! Johnny peckerhead peed in the weeds!   Johnny peckerhead peed in the weeds! Little Stevie chanted in Johnny’s face when he turned around.   He stood there in shock at the playground of his small kindergarten. After the third time Stevie went through it all the kids gathered around and began to join in. Johnny stood there surrounded by children and humiliation. The kids continued to chant as little Stevie walked towards the swings satisfied that he lead the small group in his way. 

                Higher and higher he swung on the swing as more and more children joined in the chant. Johnny’s face turned brighter and brighter red as his eyes grew with fear and anger! 

                It came out quicker than a bolt of lightning and almost as hard to retrieve from the heavens above and the earth below, “I hope you fall off that swing and die Billy!” Then came a sweetness to his mouth like he never experienced before, with it, came a sense that everything would be right again.

                Little Johnny’s eyes burned with fire and in that next blink of his eyes, little Billy swung to the height of the bar that held the swing attached. His hands that once held the chains were now gesturing at Johnny with tongue protruding out between grinning lips. Johnny closed his eyes to squelch the burn, and started to cry. He held them closed tightly hoping to hold in the tears when the voices silenced with a sound that he knew before, but couldn’t remember why or what. Then came the screams as the kids now stood around little Billy’s dead cold body, as blood poured from his open head!  He opened them to the product of a few prophetic words that seemed, too easily, rolled from his tongue with that strange sweet flavor!

 

---

 

                “It wasn’t your fault Johnny. You didn’t make him let go of that swing.”  

                There was a long pause of silence before he spoke again as little Johnny sat on a low couch wringing his hands in front of the school counselor. 

“It’s only been three weeks since the accident. Do you think that you are ready for this?” He asked, hoping the little boy would at least lift his eyes to his level. 

Johnny quickly looked up with the first sign of fire in his eyes since the accident. “I’m not stupid Mr. Linger, I am ready to start school again.” 

His voice was straight and sure, but his mind lingered behind. Johnny was more afraid of missing school and looking stupid on his return than he was of seeing the other children again and what they would say. Besides he had heard his Mother arguing with his father the night before. His father insisted to her that he return before he misses too much and ends up being a grade behind. Upon hearing that, his mother argued that if it happened, she thought maybe it was for the best, so he could come up with the younger children and be with a different group of kids. Johnny never sided with his father on anything. But this he knew for sure, he wasn’t going to be held back in school. 

“I know…you are a very bright boy, but maybe it’s for the best if you take some more time to sort all of this out.” Johnny watched his lips move carefully occasionally seeing his tongue move with each sound of the words, as the white haired counselor peered over his reading glasses at a clipboard in his hands. 

They were just words, Johnny thought. Then he could feel his stomach tighten as if someone was squeezing his guts and twisting. He thought of the saying that he heard from his friend when Stevie would tease him, “Sticks and Stones,” he could still hear him saying that. Even after the last three weeks of his young life that turned his mind from a boy’s to a man’s. Then he could see the image of Billy coming again, laying prostrate next to the leg of the swing-set, pulling tears along with it. He fought them back biting down on his tongue hard till he tasted his own blood.

“Johnny are you okay?”

“I’m…all right.  I want to go back to school now. I know it wasn’t my fault.  I just feel bad.”  He looked down at his shoes as the words spilled out. They came out smoothly, as if they were truth. They tasted sweet on his tongue. Like the words he spoke before Stevie fell from that swing. Yes Johnny was learning the power of those words.

“It’s okay to feel bad Johnny…it’s okay to feel bad that Stevie is gone. As long as you remember that what happened wasn’t your fault. It was just a tragic accident.”

Johnny heard him all right, but he knew better. He knew that life and death were at his disposal…in his words. He knew that Billy dropped to his death with the flow of only a few words.   

Johnny started school again all right, and that sweet taste that seemed addictive to him didn’t cross his lips again for years until he heard that same sound again. Like when Billy hit his head on that swing-set pole.  The next thing he heard was his Father’s voice from inside the house as he stood at the door with book bag in hand.

Johnny was seventeen now and a senior in high school when he stood there hearing that same sound. He was old enough to know where the bruises were coming from now. Old enough to know what he was about to do when he walked through that door to see his Father standing over his mother now laying on the hardwood living room floor. 

“Mom!” He spoke frantically seeing her now lift her head that bled from underneath her long golden hair. 

“Dad…”

His father stood there speechless as Johnny looked him in his eyes. The same eyes he had seen before. “You did this.” He spoke calmly.

“Johnny! Go to your room, I’ll help your mother up and take care of the cut.”

“No, you won’t be taking care of her anymore dad.” He could taste the sweetness return again as his thoughts turned cold. 

“You know…Dad...all hell is about to take your soul where it belongs.” His mother’s mouth opened to speak and Johnny cut her off before she could stop him.   “When that weak, dark heart of your gives out!”

He closed his eyes again, but this time it wasn’t tears he was holding back. He heard the sound of gasping near him. He opened them as his father fell with one hand holding his chest as the other slid down his leg to the loose end of his jeans, holding on with a few fingers that a moment later let loose. 

He took a step back away from his father’s body when the floor suddenly sounded as if it were being torn open with the sound of wood screaming out. Then it was open to a world with creatures that couldn’t be created from the darkest imagination, clawing their way out. Pulling what looked to be the smoky dark image of his father’s psyche down into the darkness that was never seen before. The floor creaked and screamed again with a voice that he once. Then it was whole again with his father’s body left lying next to a small pool of blood where his mother had been. She was gone too. Where, he wouldn’t know until after the shock of what he had done, had worn its way deeply into his mind.

Then he found her body lying similarly, next to the porcelain of the bathroom tub with a large pond of crimson where she had taken her life with a pair of scissors.

     

  The End