Jaycee Woods

Worked on formatting my draft for a short story “Homeless Girl,” which featured two characters I had referenced as Spirit and Girl. Originally, it was a horror story about a strange man picking up a homeless 12-year-old girl off the street. His motive and her fate were left disturbingly uncertain. I renamed the Spirit character to a generic man to play down the overtly supernatural. The working title is now “Temptation in Apathy.”

Reading as I formatted, I decided that its style was like that of a modernized medieval morality play. While I remain an unapologetic atheist, the story includes religious elements. While the story is more identification than advocacy, it challenges the response of private charity, public, and religious institutions; meanwhile, after editing I as narrator will play it neutral between those interests. The man does say a few blasphemous lines that are in the struggling with doubt realm: “God didn’t save you when you were in need. I did my little kitten,” and “God hasn’t punished your mother [who abandoned the girl on the street].”

My several short stories in my ‘Homeless Female” genre are usually variant dramatizations of the meme “she is for the streets” related to promiscuity. However, this story is about child neglect. At least for now, the draft ends:

“The little girl was never seen on that street again. Who or what was that man? A benevolent stranger, a pervert, the Devil, or Death himself? No one cared to ask. What did people’s apathy allow to happen to that little girl? Denied the care and protection of a parent and her community, would they care to know her fate? Where was God’s church when she was open to their protection and guidance?”

Performed as an old-time morality play for a congregation, the story would likely encourage filling the collection plate to fund an At-Risk-Youth Outreach Ministry. Less likely that an apathetic polity would mobilize to reform failed CPS agencies and foster care policies. As for secular private charities removing the corrupting influence of government funding and political agendas, there is hope in optimism.