text: The man who lived down the street, just six houses from us always wore a disappointed look on his face, halloween trick or treating was never fun as he always used to make us run off w/o as much as a dumb raisin. The neighbourhood kids hated him for that very reason, and I was no exception. I wondered often, what could he possibly own that made him so arrogant, so proud, so much so that even socialising with kids was beneath him? As I grew up, it turned out that adults were no exception either. This once I recall, all the adults of the society were to gather around for a meeting to review the rules and regulations of the society, everyone but the man who went by the name of Mr Steadler was in attendance. Noticing his absence, a triplet of the committee members was sent to his house to inquire why couldn't make it to the meet. Being the socialising wizard he was, he wasted no time in belittling the very existence of the committee and the clinginess of the members to get to his house uninvited, invading his personal space, and not letting him be.I remember asking my mom about Mr Steadler and why he was always in such a bad mood, and why he never talked to anyone, adult or child. To my disappointment, my mother had no answer either. It turned out, nobody in the neighbourhood knew anything about Mr Steadler apart from his address, his limping walk, and his charming personality. Being as curious as I was, I made it my mission to unravel the mystery that was Mr Steadler. I began by noticing Mr Steadler's routine for a week. Everyday he used to leave his house at 9 A.M. and return at 11 P.M. He never broke this pattern. At most he deviated for an hour or so but that could have very easily been the traffic holding him up. I also noted that between him leaving the house in the morning and entering it in the night, he never had so much as a grin on his face. I began to wonder if this guy ever really had a good day. He looked like he was about 45, maybe 46 years old, which made this even a sadder mystery to solve, to track the daily routine of a 46 year old man who never experienced a single day of happiness? It was getting depressing, even for a 15 year old. But I wasn't ready to give up just yet, I concluded that if I want to get to the bottom of this, I need to follow Mr Steadler around to know more about him. And so, upon the brink of Sunrise one Monday morning, my journey to become local detective had begun.I woke up early, freshened up quickly and waited anxiously on my bike for Mr Steadler to make a move on with his day. My parents weren't being very supportive of my actions, but like all heroes I knew that if I were to make it, I had to let go of them one day or the other.Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Mr Steadler came out, locked the door behind him and drove off to wherever he used to drive off to. I followed him, maintaining quite a distance from him. With my helmet on, I was pretty sure it would be difficult for him to recognise me from this distance. I followed him to a mansion located just outside the city. It took us about 4 hours to reach there. Mr Steadler stepped out of his car and went inside the mansion while I stayed behind and set myself up at a nice vantage point with my pair of binoculars to give me a good view of what's happening inside the mansion through its windows. For the next 3 hours what I saw can only be called comedy in its truest form. I saw him cleaning the mansion from top to bottom while a guard kept poking him with a stick, saw him dance for, I'm assuming, the resident kids, saw him getting yelled at by possibly the owner of the mansion while he was on his knees. This was all too funny to miss. But then he did a very peculiar thing just before he left, he went to the adjacent garden, stood there for about 5 minutes and did the most abnormal thing he could possibly do - He smiled. Once he was done making a fool of himself, he got in his car and went off. I assumed we're off to our home and so I got on my bike and followed him from the same distance as before. But I was wrong. He made a turn I didn't recognise. I kept following him for another 90 minutes until we reached a graveyard. This took a dark turn real quick for me. I thought maybe Mr Steadler had spot me and now to protect his image he would take care of me here in the graveyard and dispose off my body in one of the graves. All sorts of horrible thoughts were circling in my head now, how he could use a stick, a hammer, or a jack to knock him unconscious, maybe rape me before killing me whole and then leave my naked body in a hole to rot for eternity? I wanted to run away but then I noticed him getting out of the car, standing at the gate of the cemetery and start crying. He wasn't here to kill me, he was here to grieve. But for whom?As he went inside, I closed in the distance so as to come within earshot of what he was about to say. I finally understood the importance of gravestones at that very moment. He went near a grave which I couldn't make out clearly of whom it belonged to, but I didn't care, all I wanted to do was listen. And so I did. What I heard next brought tears to my eyes. "Hey momma, I'm back. It's been 2530 days since you left. I know I say it every time I come here but I just don't know how to begin talking to you without saying how much everything changed since you left. The mansion in which we used to live in was taken over by dad, he kicked us all out and started his own family, completely abandoning us. Talia fell in love with a guy with connections to the underworld and lost her life to a don who enslaved her for 3 years. When she could no longer live with herself, she cut herself in the middle of a night and those monsters, instead of covering up her body and performing a proper funeral, left her naked cut body to rot in the streets for days until someone found it because of its foul smell. It took some time to identify her but when the media did, it broke me. To see my sister go through that filled me with rage and left me feeling so powerless because there was nothing I could do against these people. After some time had passed since Talia, I met this girl Alice in whom I found comfort. I confided in her and she embraced me with open arms. We went out for a couple of weeks before finding out she was already married to the same don responsible for Talia's murder. Thanks to our similar facial features, it wasn't hard for him to figure out who I was. As soon as he found out, he had me abducted from a fair I was attending and had me in front of a gun's barrel. He gave me two options, either die on the spot or live another day as one of his servants. I don't know why I chose the latter for the former would mean dying once but the latter would be to die everyday. Every single day he makes me clean his massive mansion with a small tooth brush. Everyday I fail to finish even a single floor for which he punishes me by making me stand in water filled with Piranhas. I have lost most of both my feet because of this, his wife, Alice yells at me horrible words just because I'm part Jewish, and keeps reminding me that me and my kind deserved the holocaust and what a whore my sister Talia was. It hurts more to know this is what she thinks of me now that we're over. To humiliate me further, the don would often fuck one of his sex slaves or his wife at times in front of me by tying my cock to a rope hung around a sensitive lever which would unleash the hounds on me should I get hard looking at them have a go at it. Once or twice an incident happened and I still have the scars all over my body. My life has gotten so sad that I'm afraid of making any friends whatsoever, I have to be rude to people, even kids all the time because I know that one little out for my emotions would mean a total breakdown for me, where I'd cry like a baby. Everyday before I leave that horrible mansion, I go over to their garden and smile that at least you guys are no longer here or you'd have it much worse than me. Heh, it's kind of ironic isn't it? Your death making me so sad while at the same time being a blessing. God, if there exists one, does work in mysterious ways, perhaps. I, anyway came here to tell you mom that, I'll be joining you soon. I want you to heat up whatever's leftover from last night because tomorrow I'm coming to you and Talia."Tomorrow he was going to his dead mother and sister? What did that mean? They're dead, how can he -Before I could finish processing that thought, I heard a cracker go off behind me. It was odd for a firecracker to go off at a cemetery. I sneaked a peek behind the gravestone I was hiding behind and saw Mr Steadler's skull all blown into several little pink pieces. The sound I heard wasn't of a firecracker... It was a gunshot.The gunshot had moved me, I didn't know what to do, all I knew was I had to get out of here otherwise it would be I who'd be in trouble. I made a run for my bike and cycled home as fast as I could. It was the longest journey I had ever embarked, from the cemetery to my place. All the events of the day kept going on repeat in my head. I reached home and went straight for a shower. I felt dirty, disgusted, and sad. I couldn't help but breakdown while in the shower. After a while it was difficult to tell how much of the liquid was actually water and how much were my tears. It's been 5 years since that one horrific night, nobody but me knows the tragic life that Mr. Steadler lead and now it's my burden to live out the rest of my days with that knowledge.