The pillow man

He was nine feet tall, and he was covered with soft pink pillows: his arms were pillows, his legs were pillows, his body was pillows; His fingers were thin little pillows, and even his head was a pillow, a big round pillow. He had two button eyes on his head and a big smiling mouth that smiled all the time. So you can always see his teeth, and his teeth are also pillows, little white pillows.

Pillowman had to look like this, he had to feel gentle and secure, because that was his job. Because his job is very sad, very difficult.

Whenever a man or a woman is very, very sad because of the terrible suffering of their life, they just want to end it, they just want to end their life, their pain, and just as they are killing themselves, with a razor, with a bullet, with gas, or jumping off a tall building, the pillow man comes to them, sits beside them and holds them gently. He would say, "Wait a minute."

Time slows down strangely, and when it does, the Pillowman travels back to the childhood of that man or that woman, to a time before their terrible lives began. Pillow Man's job is very, very sad, because his duty is to make the children kill themselves so that they don't have to go the same way again after the painful years: to the coal stove, to the gun, to the lake.

"But I've never heard of a young child committing suicide." "You would say. The Pillowman always advised the children to make themselves look like an accident: he would point out the medicine bottles that looked like jelly beans; He would tell them how dangerous it was to jump between two cars; He would remind them how to fasten plastic pockets without air holes. Because for Mom and Dad's feelings, it's better for a five-year-old to die in a tragic accident than for a five-year-old to commit suicide to escape a life of misery.

Not all kids like pillow man, though. There was a happy little girl who didn't believe in Pillow Man. When Pillowman told her about the darkness of life and the hardships she faced, she drove him away, and Pillowman went away crying, his tears so big that they made a big pool of water.

The next night there was another knock on the girl's bedroom door and she said, "Get out of here, Pillowman. I told you I was happy. I have been happy and I will always be happy." But not the pillow man this time. It was another man. The girl's mother was not home, and the man went into her bedroom whenever her mother was not home. Soon, she became very, very miserable.

When she was twenty-one and sitting in front of the coal stove, she said to the Pillowman, "Why don't you try to persuade me?" "Said the Pillowman." I tried to persuade you, but you were too happy." As she turned the gas valve on full blast, she said, "But I haven't been happy. I haven't been happy."

When Pillowman succeeds, a child dies tragically. And when Pillowman fails, a child lives a life of misery, grows into a man of misery, and dies tragically. Pillow Man, so big and fluffy, could only go round and round in pain all day, and his room filled with tears, so he decided to do it one last time. He went to a clear river and took a small can of petrol with him.

There was a big weeping willow by the river. He sat under it and waited for a while. There were all the little toys under the tree. There was a car, a small toy dog, and a kaleidoscope. There was a small caravan parked nearby, and the Pillowman heard the door open and footsteps, and then a boy say, "Mother, I'm going to play outside for a while." "Yes, son," said the mother, "don't forget to come back for the snack." "I won't forget, Mother."

Pillowman heard the child's footsteps coming nearer, and there stood not a little boy under the great weeping willow tree, but a Pillowboy. The pillow child said "Hello" to the Pillow man, and the Pillow man said "hello" to the Pillow child, and they both played with toys for a while.

The Pillowman told the Pillowchild about his miserable job and the dead child and all that, and the Little Pillowchild understood it at once, for he was such a happy child, and he was so intent on helping others, that he sprinkled the can of petrol all over his body, and his smiling mouth smiled.

The Pillowman said, "Thank you" to the Pillowman with a big tear in his mouth. "Never mind," said the Pillow Boy. "Tell my mother I can't go for supper." The Pillow Man lied. "Yes, I will."

The Pillowchild struck a match, and the Pillowman sat and watched him burn himself, and when the Pillowman was about to disappear, the last thing he saw was that the smiling mouth of the Pillowchild was turning to ashes and nothing was left but emptiness. It was the last thing he ever saw. And the last thing he heard was something he had never expected. The last thing he heard were the screams of the thousands of children he had helped to kill themselves, who had come back to life and had to endure the cold, dark lives they were destined to lead. Since he could no longer help them avoid this suffering, they were, of course, completely alone in their self-mutilation, so they cried bitterly.

And so Pillowman disappeared, as if he had never existed.