The Thief of Childhood

He was a monster, worse than an animal, skulking through the neighborhood and terrorizing the children.

Stealing their innocence.

Disgusting.

He’d stalk his prey and, once no adult was watching, creep up on them, to whisper his poison into their innocent ears.

“You’ll never be as well-off as your parents,” he’d tell them, “no matter how hard you work, or how smart you are. The age of that kind of prosperity has been over for nearly a decade, and it’s never coming back.”

And in their hearts they knew it was true.

And so he left them, weeping in despair...