By Mr. A. Oddity

Content Warning for bullying

There once was a boy who would dream; he dreamt of rocket ships and moon rocks floating all around him. Each speck of dust kicked up by his heavy footsteps was its own universe, intertwined with the beautiful colors of all the grays that surrounded him. Each of his smiles was adorned with glistening teeth, light shining off of them like sunshine on a glass pane; and every day he would wake up with a different dream. A dream of being an astronaut, an inventor, of being anything other than what he was. 

And every nighttime lullaby his mother used to sing told glorious tales of triumph that seeped into his soul and brought those universes of dust back to life. Bringing what was gone back to his quaint little room where he formed his own world, away from the childish judging eyes that sliced his skin with each glare. Every stare and glance another stinging lash to his back, leaving thick and ugly scars that marked every one of his attempts to escape the world around him. His only joy was to break from reality where the infinite space was not there to consume and destroy, but to build. To build fantasy worlds where all his friends liked him, where he could run all day and never have to go back inside; and where like the sun painted Icarus a waxy shade of gold, his skin glistened and basked in the shimmering rays that were shot down from the sky.

There once was a boy who would dream, and when he dreamt the world was flipped off of its axis and gravity ceased to exist. He could think of entire timelines where he could grow and reach and reach and reach and never fall short. He could imagine love and laughter filling the streets like an orchestra swelling into climax but never crashing. A time when the moon was never too far and where doubt was simply the utterances of the mucky people below with their feet stuck in the interminable bog of adulthood. A time where it was juice instead of blood that stained his lips, where his eyes like tiny galaxies shone, where his gaze seemed to scare you and assure you all at once. Like when he used to chase away the monster under the bed or when he was a baby suckling on his mother’s breast as the city below bellowed its medley of honks and sirens. Each clash and bang was a beautiful and chaotic symphony shocking the ears of the audience with its shrieking wails

So, there once was a boy who could dream. But with each year that went by, the sparkle in his gaze disintegrated into a muddy brown iris, surrounded by the shot red pristine white eye. The juice stains faded from his lips as the particles of dust simply became something to eliminate, yet another chore in his robotic life. No longer would the dreams come up to him at night as his nights began to rest with dreams of him. Every single night was spent writing and clacking away at keys to entertain the idiotic idea that the dreams might come back. That his stories would awaken the dormant wonder that he hoped rested inside him. No longer did he wake up with a different dream, he woke up with one, not entirely certain of what it even was. What little time he believed he had left was stolen from under his feet like poverty upon the world, a simple thief in the night. He no longer thought of the infinite cosmos, no longer did ideas of inventions come to his head. As all the world’s impurities were struck to the ground by his heavy footsteps and swollen boots, he wondered, who was the boy that could dream?

–

My writing journey commenced when I was still in elementary school, and only grew stronger when I started to read the words of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Atticus. I practiced martial arts for 11-12 years and earned 2 black belts in the style of Okinawan Goju Ryu.