The Stranger

 The short horror story titled “The Stranger” was written by Megan Baxter on July 20, 2023, the story is about a babysitter who lets a stranger woman enter the house in the middle of the night where everyone in the neighborhood is asleep.

The story wanted to paint an important lesson that all of us needs to keep in mind. The woman (the stranger) asked strange questions to the babysitter sounded like she’s suggesting something horrible. “The children, the woman said, would you eat them? Put them in an oven and roast them up?” (Baxter, 2023). This statement is an artistic way of portraying the demons inside of us, the stranger is like a personification of what is inside of us and that we need to learn when to listen to our thoughts.

Demons can be in any forms, finding its way to entice us to commit horrible actions which later on we can no longer undo. The story is a story of how we should deal not only to strangers but also to our inner thoughts. This short story I something that we should be reading and fonder upon because it delivers a strong message that will help us be a bring the best in us especially when we deal with our inner demons and to strangers.

I found an article related to this topic, it is in titled “"MAN IS A DEVIL TO HIMSELF": DAVID JORIS AND THE RISE OF A SCEPTICAL TRADITION TOWARDS THE DEVIL IN THE EARLY MODERN NETHERLANDS, 1540-1600”, written by Waite, G. K. (1995), the story is about the connection between devils and witches from the ancient beliefs. It is believed that witches are engaged into devil activities that will give them powers that are unimaginable to human.

The article described about resistance and belief to devilish acts and that bad lucks re associated to witchcraft and devils, it was established that the prior generations of humans are uninformed that that the actions that they were following are not relevant to today’s generations, and that people mistakenly believe devilish acts from the inner voice they hear. At the end of the article, the author made a point about the inner voice and belief we have and identify it as the evil inside of us.

Therefore, I conclude, that witches do not have anything to do with our decisions, it is about the inner voice that we have because we are not properly guided with the things that we are confused about. It is very important that we do reality check and see if we are conscious about things that are for humanity and that there are things that human cannot explain, but it does not mean that it is an act of devil; but a temptation because of what was planted to us by our ancestors.

References:

Baxter, M. (2023). The Stranger. Flash Fiction Magazine. https://flashfictionmagazine.com/blog/2023/07/20/the-stranger/

Waite, G. K. (1995). “MAN IS A DEVIL TO HIMSELF”: DAVID JORIS AND THE RISE OF A SCEPTICAL TRADITION TOWARDS THE DEVIL IN THE EARLY MODERN NETHERLANDS, 1540-1600. Nederlands Archief Voor Kerkgeschiedenis / Dutch Review of Church History, 75(1), 1–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24009006