The Hound of Heaven
By Ivan de la Fuente
It was the night before Christmas. Yet save for our Yuletide trimmings, the laughter of our neighbors and the clanging of a nearby church’s bells, in our house it was anything but Christmas. I was in grade four then, the night when I was introduced to drugs, it was my brother who handed me my first stick of marijuana. I accepted it because I wanted to be closer to him. Ever since he made friends with the village bums, we started growing apart from each other. This left me feeling alone, dejected and lacking in self-confidence.