Under smoky skies, parents hover near their children, eyes flicking to the unbarred window as they decide to tell the story one more time. For good measure. The children grip their sheets as the words roll over them, renewing the ever burning fear that fills their lungs. What a brilliant boy he used to be, they recall, what wonderful ideas he had. They use the past tense every time. Outside a bird cries. On a night no less gray than this one, he packed a tiny blue backpack and left. Some say they saw him, a minuscule speck on the vast land, as he ran away from the bundle of lights he called home. They say he looked back only once, before disappearing into the thick grey fog. He was never seen again, how scary is that? They exclaim to their children, leaving them to imagine what horrors lie beyond the barrier of icy mist. Now, as long as you stay right here tucked into bed until morning, without looking out the window, you’ll be perfectly fine. The parents hurry this last part, to make sure they make it to their own bedroom to lock the door and shut the blinds tight, before the bells start ringing. The other day I heard a little girl tell a story her parents told her, about a courageous boy, curious and clever, who got out of a miserable never ending tale of deathly bells. I thought of you, the boy I knew all those years ago, the boy only I ever considered brave because only I ever knew him. It wasn’t until then she pulled out her small blue backpack, far too tiny to have any use besides sentimental value, I realized she was talking about you. People knew about you, of course they did. Not a single person in the land existed that didn’t hear stories about the boy who left. But it wasn’t until I saw the little girl with bright eyes housing the same sparkle as yours did, did I think people admired you the way I did that stormy night at the clocktower looking down at your plans to leave the only place we ever knew existed. You told me tales of what existed beyond, and that you were going to find out yourself. You never told me to come with you, and I never asked to go. I wasn’t brave enough to go, only brave enough to admire that you did. You are just as much an idol as you are a cautionary tale. There are those paralyzed by the fear. Look at him, they say, he’s disappeared through the mist, never to be heard of again. There are those, albeit a lot fewer, that refuse to spin it that way. Look at him, he’s disappeared through the mist. Look at him, he is free. I can only hope that they are right; that you see a sky unobscured with clouds and a land unburdened with the knowledge of the horrors that emerge when the sun sets over the murky horizon.
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