Old friend, learn to look behind you in the coffee queue

Black, plastic bags My aunt - she's one of those not-actually-aunts-but-some-sort-of-cousin once said to me, "Well, you must do whatever you think is best, but if you ask me, some children are just born evil."

Born evil. I've always wondered how a god-fearing woman imagines such a system to work. Exactly who or what decides which babies get sprinkled with bad? And how does that all fit in with everything else? Because doesn't everything have to fit together in the eyes of these people? Isn't there meant to be a reason for everything? Isn't it all meant to be something quite simple underneath, somehow?

Something not messy? Something not so fucking unfair?

She said, "I'll give you an example." She told me about a boy from her days on the beat, a looked after kid in foster care. "Those new parents gave him everything a child could ever want," she said. "And he didn't appreciate it not a single bit."

That was how she saw it. Born evil. The details of him were irrelevant.

And that was decades ago. And I wonder what she knows - or thinks she knows - of how it works now. That kids in care move placement sometimes several times a year - and that when it's time to go they get given black plastic bags to put all their stuff in.

Black, plastic bags. The type you put garbage in. That's what they get told today: your life is garbage. Your life is trash. Your life is ours to do with as we please.

I once heard of a kid who got fostered with his sister when their parents 55