The opposite is true as well, of course. I can find joy in just about anything; from a funny looking crack in the ground, to the crinkle of a smile creeping onto the face of someone I love. If you know where to look, joy is a simple enough thing to find. The trouble is in the search, it seems. That search is what inspired the idea for the story snippet below. I thought about emotion, understanding, and acceptance, and the search we all go through to getting there, and it all came back to a single point in time for me: the journey from childhood wonder to the reality of adulthood. And honestly, I just thought:
Writing Prompt:
Why can't a child be faced with the reality of adulthood, become jaded, and then decide that you don't necessarily have to choose between one or the other?
Below is my initial take on the idea, and it is one that I hope to finish and add to a collection alongside a North Country Winter. Let me know what you think!
Short Fiction
TITLE: Where the Road Ends
Do yourself a favor: head out to the street, stretch out
your calves and your quads and your hamstrings, pick a direction, and just
start walking. That's all you have to do: just walk. Don't worry, your feet
know the way.
Walk until your legs and lungs burn from exertion. Walk
until your feet hurt, and you feel like nothing would be sweeter than to give
up. Then, keep on walking. Follow the forks in the road, and keep going. Don't
look back, just look straight ahead.
If you do this (and you'd be surprised at how easy it is
after a point) you'll come to the place where the road ends. Where all roads
end. And then, you just keep on walking.
---
When I was a boy, I didn't have very many friends.
It's the typical story of a strange boy who felt more at
home between the pages of his books than in the company of other children. It wasn't just children, though. Adults
terrified me. Not because of any
tangible threat that they posed, but because of the future they
represented. Adults exuded stress, frustration,
anger, and pain. Childhood was not
always easy, but I found joy among the most random of places, and it was not
stamped out by the ardors of the real world.
One day, I found myself alone in the backyard of our small,
run-down suburban home. My mother had
left for work - she was always working in those days. My older brother was tasked with watching
over me. As is the case for many older
siblings, that wasn't likely to be top priority.
"If mom asks, you never left my side." He would
say, staring into my eyes with a burning fury. Adulthood had begun to grip him,
even then, and he was being consumed by its flame.
"Do you understand?"
I understood. I always understood. No matter how bad things got, I always
understood. He was my brother, and in
his own way, I knew that he loved and cared for me. I never blamed him for the
way he treated me - he had lost his childhood, and I was nothing but a painful
reminder. For some, realization and understanding can color the world in a very
bleak shade. It can even cloud the
beauty of our memories.
Our backyard wasn't very big – just a small patch of grass,
perhaps half the size of a basketball court.
For me, it was an enormous region, filled with adventure, mystery, and
hidden secrets.
Such is the wonder of a child.
The edge of my wonderland brushed up against the broken
panels of our home, meeting the rough asphalt of our driveway at a perfect
angle. Lush, rolling fields gave way to blackened, cracked ravines. Lost in my world of inexplicable reality, I
never crossed that threshold.
But on that day, the asphalt called to me. In the heat of the sun, burning with
curiosity and the itch of young explorers, I found myself staring across the
expansive unknown.
I remember the next moments more clear than anything
else. I looked out at the small back
yard and failed to see the film that my imagination had played for me so many
times before. I saw the browning patches
of under-nourished grass, the torn plots of mud where my small feet had torn up
the land. I saw the sorrow that plagued so many others, and I recoiled.
I turned towards the house - no longer a distant castle,
home to a dragon whose eagerness for flame and gold had so long kept me at bay
- and I thought of my family. I thought
of the future, the fear and the anger and the unknown that waited for me there,
and I felt my childhood begin to fall away.
My eyes were drawn to the asphalt, then.
I cannot say what drove me, what pushed me from the mud and
the muck and asked me to venture forth alone.
All I knew was the certainty of the unknown that had just been presented
to me, and I was frightened.
I did what all little children do, though they may never
recall the journey. I turned from the
shallow illuminations of my future, and I dashed [leapt?] into the dark,
dangerous unknown.
I walked.
---
