The Pram

by Joe Hill

He didn’t feel they had lost a baby; it had been stolen from them, along with their daydreams, their whole idea of the future. Alone, in the woods, with no one to judge him, he could help himself to all the resentment he liked.

But a funnel is just a tool. You can pour anything into one. Fuel. Grain.” “Resentment,” Willy murmured.

Ideas flitted through his head: something about funnels, something about that long line of ancient yews, something about the way all trees bore fruit.

It was the child, he knew. His child, the one he had been raising over the last month on his walks along the bridle path. He had nursed it on his resentments and it had gorged itself—he had no doubt he had raised a big, strong, healthy boy.