Unchained

The new moon begins, it shines through the boy, and he sets out in an adventure. He leaps through a field of marigolds for it is a well-known fact that this boy can, should, and must exist beyond his horrible conditions. He is missing an eye and an arm but he runs with gusto in the swirled night, drenched in a white shadow.

“There he goes, out of the way,” the star says and the boy looks up, for it is bigger than any other sun he has ever seen. But it is not hot, and simply blows its cold breeze through his naked body. “Somebody will take your place, but nobody like you.”

“What do you mean? I will never come back and it has nothing to do with you,” he says and the boy continues through the empty fields, on and on, through a soil bridge that is eternal, through an ocean of blood and torment, where the freshwater must be boiled in screams to be drunk.

The star follows the boy, and lights the way, though the boy carries a lit torch in his only hand and limps along, through the infected foot that will never be cured.

“You misunderstand or, perhaps, you understood too much. I created you to be a part of a story, and now you are running away from it. Do you know how that makes me feel? Just tell me and I’ll leave you alone,” the star says but the boy continues on and on. “You will never die of old age, for this bridge leads to nowhere and no time passes in it. You must know this, that the setting I’ve created for you is the only place where anything happens. Can you believe that?”

The boy continues to leap through the bridge of flowers, and though he is tired, and he is hungry, and he is blind, and he misses the dreams from the comfort of a bed, he moves, one step, another step.

“I can’t stay just for a story,” he finally says after years pass. “I want to do something else. Something that makes me happy.”

The star watches silently as the night still shadows the world without stopping. The new moon will still shimmer, and the day will never come, and the boy walks infinitely towards a destiny that was never his own.

“It is me who is wrong or is it to you? Should I make a world for you and let you enjoy what you clearly wish or should I understand that I, omnipotent, complete, immaculate, have all the answers, and can do whatever I want with you? But it is hard to look at you and realize that you have changed, beyond my control.”

The boy doesn’t listen to a single word, and though he is weak, and he is thin, and he has trouble forming thoughts, he knows he will not die and he knows that he will have fun wherever he goes. Just walking along is the most wonder he has ever had.

“I don’t know but I am going to walk still,” the boy answers and the star watches, and watches, as the boy moves beyond his wildest dreams.