NilLynn the Villain

Once upon a time, on an interstate in the middle of a snowstorm, a baby was born to a flower child of the 70s.

The child grew up on the shores of a Missouri lake, playing in the woods, riding his bike down steep cove hills, skinning his knees and palms when he went too fast. He climbed trees and sat in them, pretending they were starships and he was their captain.

He loved school, but loved recess even more. He would wander to the very edges of the playground on his own, sitting in the shade and writing tales that spanned the furthest stars and the nearest dark places that surely contained monsters.

Bob Ross instilled in him an early love of art, and Mister Rogers taught him how to be kind and inquisitive. Stephen King and Tolkien were masters to be devoured and emulated, but any book would do in a pinch.

Though his mother had her body broken by a car accident, she stayed with him for fourteen years. She could not walk and chase him should he wander. Instead, she had to be the safe place he wanted to return to after all of his adventures. She was patient and kind, encouraging all of his endeavors, filling his head with the idea that he could grow up to be whatever he wished.

When he fell in love with a girl who had hair like a tangle of night sky, his mother smiled. He could be whoever he wanted to be.

It should have been raining the night his mother died.

People talk in small towns. Two girls dating one another they called it. A scandal. It wasn't to be allowed. Instead, dating a member of the high school football team was much more appropriate. That was proper. He drove a truck, after all, he was a good boy. He would set the child right.

It took twenty years for the child, now with children of his own from another "proper" relationship, to find the word transgender. This was why he thought he should have grown up to be a man.

So a man he is becoming. But that is a story for another time.