123. How Sweet, Innocence

It is lost too soon. Now and then kindled. Most times forever extinguished.

Link to Marcus Stone painting courtesy of a friend.

122. The Mutant

They are easily spotted. Someone that goes against the norm in a group. Different. Strange. Frightening. They threaten because they are all that. Because what isn't known, is invariably feared. And what is feared, is loathed. And fear is channeled into hate, then hate into action.

Thus the mutant is dealt with; shunned, ostracised, destroyed. They become social pariahs, the source of constant gossip and rumour mongering, the end of every joke, a punchline. And we have our laugh about them, feeling smug in our own superiority. But it is a nervous, hollow kind of laugh. Because deep down we know.