To Be Real

He heard about the flowers and trees and grass.

He heard about the rivers and lakes and ponds.

He heard about the sun and the moon.

But never had he seen those things.

He didn’t know what they looked like, nor could he even begin to imagine what they were.

Just that they existed.

Somewhere.

Outside of the walls that enclosed the darkness around him.

This world he had been born into had been nothing more than an abeyance of life, time frozen.

A waiting game.

His mother.

His father.

Pawns who would obediently play their parts along predestined paths.

Where they would live.

Create.

Destroy.

Die.

And he would exist in the center of it all, holding on to what little would be given in the times that his mother would come to him for a semblance of comfort.

Of hope.

But it was always for herself.

Never for him.

So, he would willingly give what he could no matter how little or insignificant it seemed.

As it was the least he could do.

A repentance for his selfishness.

And he would listen to her stories, the way she strung together sounds into words that were meant to create a picture for her to escape into.

And he would take everything she said as his own.

The beginnings of a palette for the picture he would design.

But she was gone now. Dead. So, there was nothing left to further add onto.

His mother had been the one to tell him about the grass and rivers. The flowers and stars. The mountains and oceans. Everything he knew had come from her. Every word he spoke into the abyss was one that she had spoken to him, given him. He would tuck them away as they spilled from her lips, protecting them until she left, and he would quietly replicate the sounds, the syllables floating out into the blackness that surrounded him.

Calling.

To no response.

Nothing.

No one.

He had tried at times to say them to her. To close the distance between them.

An offering.

An expression of gratitude.

An apology.

But she hadn’t liked it.

Her face twisting, her voice rising, her body retreating.

Perhaps he wasn’t saying them right.

Perhaps they were all wrong.

He should stay quiet.

Keep his eyes down.

She seemed to prefer that.

Seemed to bring more comfort to her.

So, he would listen.

Hang onto the tune of her voice.

He would yearn for the words of things he knew but had never seen.

He would prepare for the day when he would finally see such things.

He would listen.

He would wait.

And then she stopped coming.

And he came.

The woman is dead.

Dead.

So, at first, he thought she would come back.

Just as he always did.

A temporary inconvenience.

But she never returned.

No longer were there words to keep him company.

Just the belligerent screams of his father.

His fury.

His resentment.

His envy.

And death.

The boy’s own.

Over and over.

Again and again.

A cycle like the trees and flowers he had heard about.

Sprouting and blooming and thriving only to be snuffed out before repeating it all again.

He didn’t like dying.

It was painful.

Isolating.

But it wasn’t all bad.

There was the light.

The warmth.

Sitting in his chest, just barely there.

Keeping him company.

Reminding him that he was alive.

And so was the other half.

Still.

He would reach out and take it.

If only he could.

So small.

So large.

So close.

So far away.

A beacon.

A calling.

A promise.

To watch.

To wait.

To accept.

And one day it would come.

Where words would be more.

They would be…

Real.

The day when the door would open.

Flames would light the room.

As footsteps puttered across the floor.

To him.

And he would peer up into ocean blue.

New.

Familiar.

Expected.

He would watch as lips curved up, separated and closed.

A voice he’d anticipated.

Talking to him.

Reaching out.

How about we get you out of here?

Finally.

It was about time his wait came to an end.

For his life to begin.