Nightmare ( Archived) (31)

I am still shaking from and having difficulties talking because of an incident this morning.

As some of you know, I live on a lake with geese and ducks. At the moment, there are many baby geese waddling around with their 2 geese parents.

I looked out my window this morning and saw a boy, approx. age 10, with a large branch beating a family of geese. This was happening beneath my window and I saw the 2 adult geese being beaten as they were trying to protect their 6 babies. I ran out on my balcony and yelled down to the boy to stop. He muttered something and continued, and the scene I was witnessing will give me nightmares for weeks to come.

I ran downstairs and at that point, this boy was being chased down the street by a woman and the boy had a baby goose dangling in his hand running towards the main road. I yelled after them asking where this child's parents were and the woman said she was his mother. In my state of heightened adrenalin, I asked what the hell was wrong with the boy. She said he was autistic and she turned to me and very snidely said thatI seemed more concerned about the welfare of the baby goose, than of her son. I must admit that at that very moment in time, she was correct. I cannot abide defenseless animals and children being abused and tortured.

Somehow the baby was let go and I won't recount the next half hour, but I eventually got in my car and began driving to work. I would've probably been upset and let it go at that. What I then saw was the boy, alone again, walking around the lake with a stick. The mother left him alone, unsupervised.

I was livid at that point and called the police and reported that an unsupervised autistic boy was in my neighborhood attacking and beating animals.

Am I unsympathetic to the boy and mother in this situation?

Thank you all for your input.

You expressed some of the same thoughts that have been running around in my mind...that this mother is at wit's end. And I have thought as well about the young children that are often out playing and how he might harm one of them next time.

I haven't seen this boy before, so I don't know if they are new here. But working all day most days, I hardly know who lives here, who doesn't, or how long people have lived here. This has brought up some concerns though regarding dead animals I've seen in the lake on previous occasions.

Living on a lake is not the serene experience I had imagined it to be. When my contract expires at the end of July, I will be moving. I have been researching other flats for the last couple of months for budgetary reasons and mental health reasons.

If I see this boy doing harm to anything again, I will first call the police (who I don't think even responded this morning), and my 2nd call will be to Family and Children's Services.

It was afterwards, when I was driving to work, that I starting losing it. I was shaking and hyperventilating and had to pull to the side of the rode. I phoned my best friend who talked me through getting my breathing under control.