Written ca. 2003 this is based off of a real experience of finding the things mentioned in the story and speculating as to why they were there.
I still remember the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. I wasn’t much older than seven years old, maybe even younger. A couple of friends and I had decided we wanted to go to the park, because next to the park were giant sand dunes we could play on. One of my friends had spoken on how we could run up and down them, as energized kids do, and that our clothes would turn white. We had convinced a babysitter to take us to the park, not mentioning that we had planned on adventuring to the sand dunes nearby.
After arriving at the park we explained to the babysitter our plan to play on the dunes. The babysitter didn’t object and we headed towards them. The dunes were just to the southeast of the park. Only a fence divided them from the recreational area.
As we walked towards the dunes, which I could then see in the distant, my friends and I found something. I still remember to this day what I saw. As we played our way towards the dunes, we stumbled into a small hollow under a pine tree’s branches. The pine branches covered the cavity so completely that no one outside could see in, unless they were close enough to the small break in the branches where the entrance was.
What we found inside the hollow is something that bothers me to this day. There were three items, a beach ball of some sort, a small pair of pants, and a page from a pornographic magazine.
I remember the beach ball with the least detail from the other two items. It was not very big, a six inch to one-foot diameter at most. I can’t recall what pattern was manufactured on the ball; it was either multicolored sections or a soccer ball pattern. I remember that it was partially deflated of air.
I remember the other two items very well. The pair of pants was extremely small; it wasn’t hard to make a conclusion that they came from a toddler. I was only around four feet tall at the time, and compared to my own pants at the time the ones I found were small. They were somewhere between one and two feet long, probably closer to one; and made of blue denim. I never investigated far enough to see what brand they were.
I remember both sides of the page from the pornographic magazine, though at the time I was not sure, exactly, what I was looking at. Thinking back on it, I know exactly what I saw. On one side of the page there was text and a smaller picture. The opposite side was much more interesting to me. It was a full print color page of a woman lying on her back with her legs spread apart and up in air forming a ‘V’. The picture was centered on the vaginal area between the model’s legs. I believe her face was visible between her legs, but the rest of the picture was strictly genital, no breasts visible. Only the thigh parts of her legs were visible and they were clad in fishnet stockings. She may have been wearing garters, but her privates were visible. Of course, at the time I had no idea what I was looking at, but I remember it clearly now. The page was somewhat crumpled.
One of my friends must have known what the pornographic picture was of, because he said we should leave. I said that I wanted to investigate further to find out what the meaning of all this was. He was a convincing friend, so I never had the chance. I had wanted to take the magazine page with me so I could study it and find out what I was looking at, not for sexual reasons, but simply because I had never seen a females sex organ. My friends said I shouldn’t and tore up the page.
We left that small hollow under the tree, and headed for the sand dunes. We never got the chance to play on them, because there was a keep out sign on the fence. As hard as we tried we couldn’t convince the babysitter to let us play there, so we ended up going home.
I have contemplated many times what the meaning of those three items was, and to this day I can come up with only one explanation. We had stumbled upon a child-raping bastard’s vile covert, where terrible deeds were conducted.
The ball must have been the lure. Judging from the size of the pants, it isn’t a wild assumption that a ball would fascinate anyone at that age, and they were too young to understand when their parents instructed them not to talk to strangers.
The pants belonged to the victim; they were left behind when the perpetrator removed the victim from the location. Perhaps the rapist hadn’t meant to leave them behind but something distracted him and he got out as quickly as possible. Or leaving the pants behind was simply part of his behavior.
The pornographic picture must have been for the rapist’s own stimulation as he fondled a small child.
This is the only explanation I have ever been able to come up with that makes sense. I will always be bothered by what I found, for I won’t really ever know what happened in that vile covert.