sushi-sunday:

A very young boy is standing alone, swimming through daydreams of a life that he hopes to one day live.

He is young in so many ways, in every sense of the word.

Firstly, he is young in the sense that he is very, very small. What is not visible, though, is the fact that on the inside, he is incredibly tall. A giant, almost. And he knows that as time passes, what is on his outside and his inside will soon catch up with each other, and all those who see him will also see his height.

Secondly, he is young in the sense that he has years and years just beginning to unfurl in front of him. He has a whole life to live, so many days to experience and things to do. He has so much to do and so many things to see, experiences and moments that he can only imagine now. He’s planning, though. He’s planning for so much and for so many things. There are two small, growing wings on his back. They are white like that of an angel, and they are getting almost large enough to carry him away.

And thirdly, he is young in the sense that he has very few moments to his name. And as we all know, it is through moments that human beings learn about the world. This makes the young boy a very oblivious person, quite lost to the world and not at all prepared to awaken yet.

This means that the little boy does not hear a word as his parents creep towards him. His back is turned and they have a perfect view of his delicate, untouched-white wings unfurled from his back, poking through small holes cut carefully into his blue shirt. His father is almost crushed beneath the weight of a massive pair of scissors. They gleam silver in the light. The boy’s mother flinches for a moment as the scissors are lifted. For just a few seconds, she is nervous. She carried this boy around inside of her for months. Shouldn’t he deserve to fly? But no, he will only fly in strange circles and shall soon get caught in a tree. She realised that she does not ever want to wake one morning to find her darling son stuck like a kite in winter-naked branches. No, she’s much rather he walks safely upon the ground.

So she helps her husband pull the handles, separates the blades before they snap down on her son’s wings. They fall to the ground beneath her feet like autumn leaves as he turns around to face them.

She looks to her husband and sees him stoic, standing stiffly and firmly. “I’m sorry, son. We only want what is best for you.”

The son says nothing. All he knows is that he can never fly now, and the adventures he’d dreamed of are now only ideas, they can never be realised by a ground-dwelling, mundane creature.