Innocence

One can remember the chill nights and the few lights made from the fireflies, the crickets doing that familiar sound while the cold breeze hit our face from the outside, Ken is one of those too, a child, a merely eight-year-old kid who is outside the house.

It was summer, very hot in the day, and the sweat stopped for a bit at night, but we all wore comfy and short clothes to let the cold hit us with that good feeling of being comfortable only at that time of the day.

While Ken was looking at the starry sky, his mother shouted, “GET IN, HONEY. IS TIME TO SLEEP” while the kid screamed back “IN A MOMENT”.

And those moments could go for minutes, even hours, but sleep always wins when we are children; without any explanation we are dragged by someone to our beds and the day is over.

But Ken, as every child has a tendency to break the rules, Ken was about to break one rule that will change his childhood: experience the joy of staying up late against the will of his parents. The thrill of getting caught and doing whatever we wanted was a new feeling for him.

He opened carefully his door and went to the backyard again; it was colder, and the sky had even more stars than before, Ken was smiling, seeing what he was missing out, but there was something weird in the distance; he thought that it must be something wrong with his vision, he woke up a few minutes ago after all.

But no, there was something moving in the grass. Kevin took his sandal out and prepared to face the unknown, but then a small furball jumped out of the grass, making Ken flinch and falling on his butt.

He instantly looked behind him and stayed quiet, trying to listen if there were any footsteps for the sound he just made, but it was clear, he then turned in front of him and the creature was gone, Ken sighed and scratched his head just to go inside his house again.

“Today was an experience” is what he thought, but that wasn’t going to be the only night when he was going to stay late. Since it was summer, there wasn’t much to do around the town, and Ken wasn’t the most sociable child.

He was alone in this room while his parents were in the living room, her mother, a housewife, was there almost all day, while his father was out working and he came back in the afternoon.

After finishing cooking the food, Ken’s mother went to check on him and found him on the floor, drawing with colors on sheets of paper.

“What’s this honey?” Asked the mother.

“This is a creature I saw yesterday”

“Is adorable, I didn’t know you like cute stuff, son”

“Is not cute! It was a beast, it had a ton of fur on his body, and it jumped very high!”

“Fufu, I bet it did, but if you want to be able to hunt the beast, you need to eat to grow stronger and have energy for it, right?”

“Yeah!”

Ken’s mother took her child in her arms and started to spin him around, then she stopped suddenly and put her child down, holding her waist.

“Mom? Are you ok?”

“Yeah, honey. Is just, Mommy is a bit out of shape, that’s all”

Ken laughed and went to the living room to eat the warm food his mother made. After eating, Ken put on a straw hat and took a bug net, along with water and a pair of binoculars, going outside and first laying down on the floor, searching for said beast.

There was nothing to see, so he went on his own. He passed a few hours trying to hunt down the beast until his mother called him out to eat. After eating, they were drinking a cold drink while looking at the backyard.

“I swear I will find this creature”

“Oh, is it in the backyard? I saw you playing a few hours ago”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem to appear, he must be hiding somewhere in here…”

“Remember what I taught you, patience makes perfect, if you hold and wait patiently, I guaranty you, you will catch it in no time”

“But I want to get him now!”

“Now, now, you cannot rush things out, honey, come on, the sun is about to go down, so it’s a perfect time to get a bath”

Ken smiled and nodded. He entered the bath after cleaning himself and submerged half of his face and started to make bubbles. After a few minutes he went out and dried himself, his father was sitting in the living room while drinking a beer.

Ken went and hugged him and his father patted his head. He was happy to see him and he went back to the backyard, this time hiding behind the doorframe. He waited and waited for minutes but he got bored and fell asleep.

Another night that he was placed in his bed and another night to break the norms, he sneaked out of his room and did the same strategy, he was constantly pinching his cheeks to not fall asleep and seeing if there was any movement, and then he saw the grass was moving again.

He waited and there was no need of pain anymore, the mere thought of coughing one of those fluffy creatures was enough, and when the grass was moving nearby, he jumped with his net and hit the floor, he had caught the creature, when he came to see it, he saw a disoriented black ball with tiny eyes and a ton of black fur.

It was trying to escape while making funny noises, then it saw Ken and the creature started to make more noises. Ken didn’t understand a single thing but there was something he was sure that the creature meant no harm and was scared, he lifted his net and the creature made another sound before leaving.

Ken saw the creature to the middle of the grass and he was skeptical, he then returned to his room and fall asleep, same day, same stuff, Ken did have friends, but all of them were far away from home, so he just spent the time inside the house, playing with his toys until the night came.

This time, it was going to be different, Ken woke up at the same hour and went outside, but this time, he went to the grass and waited for the creature to show up. The grass started to move and Ken was getting a bit nervous.

The creature showed up to Ken, they both looked at each other's eyes and Ken could take a better look thanks to the moonlight. The creature was a ball covered in black fur with big black eyes.

It was a creature completely black; no wonder Ken couldn’t figure it out or try to get a better look at it but Ken extended his arm and the creature started to sniff him, the creature jumped to Ken’s hand and Ken jumped a bit.

Ken started to touch the creature while it moved around his hand. It was soft, its hair was making Ken laugh a bit, and it was squishy too.

Ken noticed something too, this creature didn’t slide around, it had tiny feet, so tiny that it could be confused by the creature’s fur. The furball then jumped from Ken’s hand to the floor and moved a little bit just to turn back and look at Ken.

Ken understood and started to follow the creature, then it hit the same spot where the grass stopped moving every time Ken saw the creature, the creature from that spot jumped and the floor made waves like if it was water, just in a small circle.

The earth seemed to eat the creature and Ken approached the spot slowly, he touched the spot with his feet and nothing happened, then he did the same as the furball, he jumped and then the earth opened, he was sliding down while he was screaming from fear but then he was screaming with joy until his face hit the ground.

He rubbed his face with his hand and looked up, his eyes shining more than the sky at night, what he saw was a place full of furballs, the one that he was following was in what appeared to be the entrance.

A lot of furballs were around, all of them were looking at Ken with those big eyes, but not all of them were the same, some of them had different styles of hair while others had other shapes.

They had small houses, with some leaves around, the space was enormous, but the spot where Ken fell was small. When Ken stood up the creatures took a step back making noises, but then the one that was still in the entrance made a bigger sound and all of them stopped shaking.

Ken sat down in front of the furball and extended his hand once more.

“My name is Ken, yours?”

Ken did a big smile but the creature didn’t seem to understand, he moved his body from left to right and Ken moved his head from left to right and then pointed at himself.

“ME. KEN. YOU?”

He pointed at the creature, and it made a little sound, like a whistle, Ken looked up and moved his lips, trying to replicate the sound by making a whistle, the creatures started to shake but not with fear, this time with joy, throwing themselves against each other.

Ken then pointed at himself again.

“Ken”

The furball then made another noise and Ken smiled.

“So that’s how my name is in your language”

Ken then whistled the name of the furball again pointing at him and then whistled his own name, pointing at himself, the furball hit Ken with itself and started to roll around the floor.

The eyes of the furball that was in front of Ken look him directly in the eyes, its dark eyes shine like the stars far away in the universe, Ken then smiled and laughed, the furball move inside the town and Ken followed it, he looked around how all the creatures were grouping out with small pieces of grass, they put it inside their fur and made crunchy noises, it seems they had a mouth that couldn’t be seen.

“So that is why you go to the backyard”

Ken took a small piece of grass and pointed at it.

“Grass”

The furball made it sound more complicated and Ken tried to replicate it, he laughed and the furball continued showing him around.

These creatures seemed to have a big population with food that was impossible to disappear, Ken found joy looking at these creatures but he started to yawn and rub his eye.

“Hey” —Ken whistled. “I need to go back”

The furball looked at Ken pointing up.

“Exit”

The creature made a sound but the tone sounded sad, Ken touched it with his finger and smiled at it, trying to cheer it up.

“I’ll be back, I promise”

He whistled his name pointing up and then whistled his name again pointing down along with the name of the furball.

The creature seemed to understand and started to roll around and hit Ken again, Ken laughed and the creature guided Ken to the same spot he fell down, this time, the creature took distance and showed with an example how to go back.

It squatted down and then jumped, Ken squatted down and then jumped, doing a super jump that made him scream again until reaching the surface, falling down in the backyard and looking at the sky, he smiled and returned to his room with caution, slipping into his bed trying to hold his giggle until he fell asleep.