The Boy in The Nighttime - World
Prologue
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~My life could have been better…~
He awoke.
His hands were coated in dirt. Sifting, he wiggled his fingers and toes to grasp at this reality. One that he'd not chosen for himself.
It was white sand.
A desert at night stood to surround his hungering vision in the darkest blue and black. He blinked up. There was no sky above. Just a devoid room in space somewhere, where oxygen was plentiful and the night reigned supreme.
The boy quickly jutted up into sitting position. His legs didn't mind the pressure. Not, that they had to gather in order to crumple back in line.
The pain he did feel was not only in his legs, but in his heart, his eyes and throat.
His legs; they were reduced to a wrecked and fractured state. He checked them again.
Only a leg cramp, he sighed.
His knees; dry as folded crepe paper that would have been ready to snap at any given instance. He wasn't thirsty, not really as much as when he'd first awoken to the stark white desert sands.
However, if this was a desert at night, then the rules of hunger and thirst could certainly apply though later. So, he decided this would still mean he'd have to find his way out, eventually….
Where ever this was…
Standing would be murder on his dehydrated joints. The laws of survival were very different, here. He did not feel much better as he attempted to rise, except a weight on his arms and legs to lie still held him back a moment more.
This land was strange, as was his restless timing. The boy thought; taking a good look at his surroundings, that this was an infinite place without a way out. It looked so vast that his head spun. He felt his planetarium setting topple sideways as a globe – the globe now being his skull as his hands anchored the dusted soul from the starchy colored earth.
~Where am I? ~ His arms latched out to find something to grab. To touch back. He'd gotten into a fight, and then had stomped out of his house, his home…
The memory from before, was fuzzy. Not at all vivid to him, as this world was far from encapsulating to anyone who did not believe in another dimension… such as where this place could be.... The boy groaned and let his body rise up slowly further, from the sand pit he'd landed in to his aching knees as they finally relaxed. He let out another forced breath out of his caked lungs. Sand on his face and brow where e had crash landed on this strange new world.
And being alien to it, the concept too frightened the tired boy.
A woman's scowl.
A man's frown.
A prideful sibling…. Laughing as he ran away.
That memory, it had such an impact on the boy, that to recall anything meant feeling at his hurting skull every time. Was he injured from that fall? Amnesia? No. He still felt, it wasn't his memories. The boy grunted by the biting pain at his temples. He shook his head and looked up, higher into the night sky.
There was no brilliant sun in this deserted desert. Shapes bounced around; a blackboard of impossible creations not yet manifested by one's ingenuity. It seemed all but surreal to a boy.
Just moments ago, he'd been readying to go into high school that same year.
The imagination however, was not lacking here. The boy; as if unsatisfied by his aimless thoughts, brought up his index finger to point at the sky, and then began to draw.
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Figures or some scribble from a mathematics textbook.
A "scrit scritting" sounded throughout the classroom. His homeroom, as a memory formed. Coming back slowly, while urging him to move.
He wanted to know why this urge to impact a hidden wonderland, would not die unless he'd decided to draw out his frustrations right then and there.
His frame stayed breathing in this world's precious oxygen, as the drawing soon took form and shape. A woven reality, a cluster of numbers and anything from his previous cycle that the boy could remember.
The creation was not as his mind could fathom.
He gasped.
The form was without a distinctively corporeal feel, yet it was comprised not of a face – which was not supposed to be so jarring. It had a presence here. Although, in the cluster of the numbers and scribbles that the boy had crafted by his trance – like state, he had not recalled acting upon the impulse once he was done with his work.
Work.
His mom had not come home.
She'd stayed on her shift until seven, again.
Dad.
He was a puppy dog, a personal agenda man who had a crusade against the life he'd been dealt.
He had kids, but a divorce was finalized and…That was before he'd had come into their world.
Work?
They…. This was just playing in the sand –
It happened with a whirl in the skies.
The figure he'd previously drawn, dove up towards the now, newly - formed clouds.
He stared up at it, hoping it might pour. Wash away any of the tears he'd forgotten how to shed.
Rain.
He opened his palms to it.
Rain, was coming down.
Rain made of starlight.
Projected all across this world, he had himself dodging the sounds.
The blasts.
Another, and another.
A, Big Bang.
He covered his head with his hands. The dark world had become too white as his eyes readjusted; once again as he viewed the valley of pure white, it was now left, a true white canvas.
The desert was no more. The page completely wiped from memory.
From all of existence. There was nothing but a memory of time.
A time he could not recall.
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Gawking, the boy's heart started to race. His eyes as wide as his fish's open mouth; gasping for precious oxygen that the desert world had graciously allowed to this outsider, that was clearly being taken away.
His lips and cheeks puckered blue and white, the space being outside of his knowledge. Was a place like this even real? Was he still asleep? The gasping and crying would come. The times would be taken from his cold and harshly frozen fingertips –
Then, light returned to warm this world. It was not as the sky with a sea of stars and the dunes that the mystical void was illuminated by. It was more, as the boy finally saw his creation of imperfect harmonies slowly, a cascade of colorless fright in a single wave, left to be at his side.
Front and center, it saw his pain and made a sound.
A crowing; as it let clean air return to wash over this canvas untouched by man's desire to paint it any other color. The drawing had come to put his fears to rest.
The watery world was so white, and soon to fell the snow in droplets of the cascading warmth of spring. He shivered and could breathe again, quite easily. Miraculously, magic could happen here.
A switch from Mars to Pluto and to Mercury and to Jupiter Rising, the figure had now eyes to see, as they shone back through that coldest world he'd created.
As a figure that resembled a bendable piece of metal wire, it might not maintain itself for much longer - should it decide to exist inside this cold realm of snow with the boy's frozen self. It slunk over on what looked to be four legs.
Clawed toes and then, it took on a much fuller shape.
A grey lynx.
A cat of dreams and deception, as it blinked back.
The boy blinked and shivered in the cold, trying to get warmer than this world would allow.
~Would you like to join us? ~ A voice called out, as if awaiting an invitation with some, very urgent interest in mind.
~S- So…C- C- cold…. Wh- wh- what's…happening? ~
The lynx sat itself before the boy, and looked him deeply over. Its clouded coat and tabby fur was of an owl's speckled plumage - right across and down its entire back. In an instant, it understood and changed again.
Into a snowy, speckled owl.
~H- h- h- huh? …. Y- y -y- you…W-w-were??~ The boy shivered as his eyes grew even larger.
~You wanted to see me; I heard you say that my back was quite interesting. ~
The boy did not need any extra clarification to know that he'd probably been "spirited away" to some alternate dimension. This was a strange place and he'd been given a stranger still, ability. His eyes had started to open a bit wider.
~I create, and you are the one who made it so. ~ The snow owl decreed.
Again, the boy did not understand while he lay in the piled-up frost.
Riling against his luck, he growled back at the peculiar shape- shifting creation. Trying to roll over and direct his attention towards the owl, he grunted until he was to his elbows on his belly in the snow.
~I have no idea what… Or, wa…wa…ACHOO! ~
The boy could be sick, it seemed, even in a wonderland so desolate as this one. The owl turned its head and did not understand. It saw how the boy wobbled as he finally had the strength he'd lost back and stood, turning into a dead limb on an old oaken tree. Completely incapable of leaving this world on his own.
~I must help you. ~ The bird decided with a bob of its head.
It trusted in its ability to morph and swiftly came to catch the boy as he collapsed into now, the snowy wasteland and unending frost.
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There again he was, at the beginning as he was about to discover.
This world did not have a force of "death. To that in which it governed, was far greater than losing face on some alternate sphere.
The cold returned and the boy felt his skin crawl. He looked up.
He could wake during the same storm, to live it over and over again. He gawked for time, had rewound.
Only to find that the lynx; who was there to carry him away again, and again, was not there.
~It's just like a video game, a bad one. ~
The boy was readying for the Big Bang to befall this world again, thinking of what he could do without –
He did think, and the plan was not a strange one this time, he'd hoped. The same night -world. The same desert, the rain that fell. The snow that coated him…
~When I go to create that, thing like he said, I'll make something else! I can do that, right? What was it talking about? ~ He shrugged. Out of some greater instinct, the boy ended up drawing out the figure with his finger – only this time, it had a face and could fly him away from danger.
~Ok, then…. I command you to –
The world shook and leaped up into the air before he could say anything else to the newly - born entity. The figure was blurred by the sun and then the white he'd tried to avoid being lost in again, returned with a vengeance.
A coat!
Quickly, he started to draw out a tool; one to protect him from all of this. A fur coat against the cold. He'd been a fan of drawing since middle school. Yes! A part of his memory. His dad had berated the boy over his odd hobbies. The boy's mother had not endorsed her son; as a good future in art school, was not a future that could not use to put bread on the table.
He drew a coat that had matching boots with an outline that he'd seen in his history books at school. An article online said that the Vikings knew how to use snow shoes, so he drew up two and made them work for the size he'd crafted, and at the speed and time it took to escape this blinding beginning BEFORE the predetermined shift would occur.
The Lynx was about to appear. He waited in the snow with his gear now at the ready. The elements went through him. The rain did not feel comfortable as the fur soon grew too damp against his skin.
This world was fighting back. He knew it! It was alive…
~Would you like to join us? ~
The lynx did not appear; a form of ice and frost that looked to be a fox in the snow, instead took its place. A white and silvery being of its presence, as it threw the boy a loop and drew in closer. Its eyes of ebony black were something mysterious and had the outsider shivering, despite his lucky
break.
The boy gulped in disbelief. For now, he feared if that he'd ever get home.
~Who are you? W - What is this place? ~ He tried again to connect. The fox; being in touch with its surroundings, dove behind a mysterious tree and disappeared. The boy was colder now, his feet icy and freezing - while his heart and eyes felt ready to –
~This, is the beginning. It belongs to a creator. A creation of what may be, what you wish –
~I…I don't want to be here not knowing why! I want answers! Why am I ...I…Able to create?? ~
~You? ~ The bored fox reappeared, up on a branch of the tall tree. By the batting of the boy's young lashes, snow had started to cling to them, causing the boy's eyes to glue together. As tighter and tighter, they wanted to shut.
~You can see this world. It is imperfect. It cannot exist. You want to know? ~
I…. I want to see! ~ He shouted out at the wily fox. Its teasing was an annoyance. The teenager's pride was buried under a mountain of falling white. The snow hit him in the head, his legs again felt the sand returning to bury him alive.
~Then, open them. ~
~Open your eyes now, Riley. ~
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Riley Baxter was a boy who'd just found out that his best friend since middle school, was going to be calling it quits on their friendship.
He'd called and texted, asking if she'd reconsider. He believed that she'd moved on, but he had not. He clung to the past. It was all he had to keep himself sane.
Graduation day had been a horrific piece of work. The whole school was caught in the rain and had to go inside. The rest had been a cold supper since his parents had been working and could not take time off to participate in the biggest moment Riley might evet have.
His Aunt Ellen had saved the family's supper, as she had watched from the bleachers all that day to have Riley's spirits up. Her eyes had been so very soft and nurturing, even if she wasn't truly related to the Baxter clan.
Then came, Addison Baxter. He was the older sibling who'd always been the golden child. He knew Riley was different. They all had called the principal when the family's youngest son had not gone to Gym as he'd been told. Instead, he cried and was left to the library with a special case on their hands. He read books, a lot more than most kids. But if any, it was a way to hide and feel safer than being hit by a red rubber ball – over and over again.
Riley could not see ghosts. He just did not like to be in crowded rooms for very long, or the noise left him to rot inside his shell like a cocoon he would never breech. He'd loved world history and the past, and had talked about becoming an Archeologist since the fifth grade.
Once talk of middle school had come up, the innocence of an odd boy like Riley, had only grown to allow his passions to transform into better ones, with even more inspirational ideals to guide him.
His Aunt Ellen allowed Riley to visit her home and answered all of his questions about the world that she'd known of. She had once been a pilot and had traveled to dozens of places. He asked her once if she'd met Amelia Airheart, but Ellen never said anything about the times she'd learned from her grandfather's days.
Riley learned to draw anything from his good pal Angela. She was who he'd been on the phone with. Begging her to talk one last time before they finally parted ways.
~Your life just isn't going anywhere. It makes me feel sorry for you. I can't deal with that. ~
Riley had cried at the dinner table, but then had retreated up to his room that night when he'd recalled what Angela had said to him. He was still a kid! That, and his parents just had answered with "some people aren't meant to stay friends with you."
His brother was an expert with every subject that his school could toss in "Addison Baxter's" perfect face. He rarely missed a meal, but once high school came, Riley was nothing more than a burden on his sibling's social life.
~Why don't you go out and try to be more sociable? You sit in your room all day and play that, depressing music. ~ His brother had said.
~Addison wants to go to college. What happened to your Archeology phase? ~
That was it, he'd given in and for once, wanted to stop doing even his drawing. One last time, by the time the first year of high school arose, he'd draw his last masterpiece and leave this place behind.
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Riley…that was who he was…He had a life back then…Why was he here? Was he really –
~Did…I die? –
~No.~
The bored fox yawned and now changed into a snow leopard, with a long enough tail to bat snow flies with.
~You wished. You are here to create. I will do what I must to grant it. Soon, for this world is short.
You can make a real world from dreams. ~
~That…That isn't really what happened? Is it…~ Riley noticed that the snow had begun to clear. The white world was returning to resemble a dark blackboard.
The shifting being transformed into the cluster - from the first try he'd had in the night time desert world creating the being…
~I resemble thoughts, your thoughts. You cannot erase the present here. Only the past must end us.
A beginning will not be clouded by the pain of your past. ~
~Wait! Why did you say I "wished" to dream this up –
~Not a dream. A wish, for you wanted to create more than your life was given. We are here to allow it. If you can be the one to create –
~I got that but…I don't get it! ~ Riley moaned and threw his head into his hands with a whine and a whimper of desperation.
~You are the one who can see, just how time works for many. You can be –
~No…Don't say it…. ~
~A creator. ~
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~ Ah, you mean…. ~ Riley wanted to erase his creation. It had said that was against the rules. He tossed back his head and bit his lip.
Great. He was in a bad comic strip.
~What is a god? Is it imperfect like this world? ~ The cloudy figure asked the teenager.
~Am I supposed to get angry at you? Are you my enemy or something? ~
~What do you want me to be? ~ It tried to play coy.
~Stop that! ~ Riley sniffed. He looked around at the grey and spinning symbols in his wake.
~If I can be a creator, did I mess up in my time? Did I ruin something there? Can I ever go back? –
~Why? You can carve out a new home, here. You can see what it means to live, whether in peace or by strife and to toil. ~
~Toil? Very funny. ~
~I am serious about that. Are you sure this is your wish? –
~It is! ~ Riley blurted out. His head was throbbing something awful.
~Then, make me see it. Your wish. ~ The figure added on, before fading out into nothingness.
~Fine! I will! ~ Shouted back Riley, with his fists clenched painfully into knotted clusters.
Make, a world? Was it seriously saying that a human being could become something from a clichéd storybook's famous lines? Was that even possible??
He panicked, as these new realities had unveiled that this ability was to throw mere mortals to the rocks. Racking his poor, walnut – sized brain on the World's happenings, Riley wanted to know what had happened before he'd awoken to this one wonderland.
It could have been a big conspiracy! A dream? Was he still sleeping on the pavement, outside of the city? Awake from his folks!?
~I ran away, I decided to fix myself…this was so off – course. It's not funny! ~ He shouted, before trying to tone down his voice. Not like the sky could reprimand him. Then again, it had prevented him from moving to the next 'stage' of this life. Was this just a dream? He guessed it was; the pain he felt wasn't really the same as a physical agony. He'd broken his leg before. That, had hurt. This, was kid stuff compared to getting a hairline fracture.
A bed. He wanted to go to sleep. Even now, with the snow gone, he wanted to sleep "the weird world" off his back with one shove. ~I'm going to miss Christmas. It was my last time for school to really drag around during the holidays. I just…. ~ He yawned and brought up his index finger.
~I can draw anything, huh? ~ He decided to start what came to mind; a plainly dressed, modest trundle, with a set of pillows as soft as a sheep's rear flank.
On their trip to Riley's family's home in the United Kingdom, Riley's father's grand uncle had owned a farm. A herd or flock of these fuzzy pillows had also been the highlight of Riley's childhood memories.
Once you had a place to sleep with the livestock, you never wanted to go back to your busy, city life. He lived in a flat with his mother, but his parents had divorced so this was the best option. He'd gone to his dad's before the last leg of school that week was going to be out, unofficially psyched for a wintery vacation in the family's woodsy cabin retreat up north. Riley would be going to his pop's to help set out the decorations and string up the lights on the tree. This was the one time he could get creative without being gawked at by his family.
Addison had been too busy with his college prep work; he wanted to travel far from their home to explore anywhere he set his sights on. Riley, had no idea if art school would ever be an option. His mother was modest and did not celebrate the holiday - she instead had opted to bring out her best vintage wine and crosswords; instead of placing their menorah for all to see on the heirloom coffee table she'd been unceremoniously handed. Riley too, was half Ashkenazi Jewish to his mother's branch of the family; she had always been keen on seeing her sons come out of their shells as children. Now, their adolescent patterns had her at a loss for all-natural thought.
As long as the easy life came after, she could care less if a test wasn't a perfect grade in gym for her youngest, lazier, son. Her older boy was going to leave the nest, so Riley had to follow by his example. Even if he was a bit, slower to pick up the pace, she wanted to hope at least that her youngest offspring cared about becoming a teacher or a secretary – anything that would have the woman back to her endlessly, peaceful days. Alone, sipping mimosa on a beach somewhere in the Caribbean.
She'd been there, all throughout the grueling divorce trials. She'd kept Addison and Riley's father from having a meltdown and being subjected to various treatments of Paxil and Cymbalta.
Riley's dad had wallowed for many years in the loss at court before he'd been bolded enough to demand to see his children. Living on a sofa in his parent's small apartment; before heading a steep drop – off of every kid in the known area on the smallest school buses available, their father had settled for driving kids to school instead of seeing his own until he'd made up enough funds to help their holiday to be a 'jolly' one.
Addison stuck up his nose to the idea and stayed in relation to his closets school friends, not his family that had been pulled apart as monkey bread on your first cut at the Thanksgiving table. This mess, was more so a metaphor of what was to come. Not a single person left the monkey bread alone, so the hole in the table would have been replaced by something not as satisfying as the first offering. Though, it would have sufficed long enough to digest another round of side dishes and gravy boats.
Their lives had been filled with joy and tears.
Riley had enjoyed looking at books that described other places to in the world during his meltdowns. He kept to himself as a child. Now, when he'd tried to reach out to his parents about his creative though, they'd obviously expended their enthusiasm to the blood – sucking, big - shot, Addison. Nothing of joy or remorse awaited Riley. He was too late to call his ideas anything more that simple thoughts off the top of his noggin.
He flew down that rut and finally had a passion. His only talent was to draw, and he could do so much of that here. He wasn't worried about himself being pulled in too quickly to the glitz of this new plane; his parents had to still have some sympathy, that he'd been suffering in his room for a few years. Not a few days, seeing as he'd lost his way. Taking this new role on was not just a slap in the face, it was a way of saying 'try again, because you blew it with being human.' What if he had no chance of respecting this fox's wish? Was it really a fox, anymore??
Sleep could challenge his beliefs. It could wash away the ugliness and guilt. Erasing all progress, he could reconcile with his mother in a dream. He could also slap his holly – jolly – girl scout of a dad in the side of the skull for being so weak – willed and hopefully inane. Or he could one - up his big brother in just about every sport or line of study that he so dreamed.
With a deep sigh, the bed was well crafted. The same old frame stood as his days in his family's old house on the hill. In a suburb long before he'd decided to quit seeing or dreaming with his eyes wide open, he dreamed of a time that left his stomach knot - free. In one motion, Riley plopped his entire self onto the twin - sized marvel and drifted off while the endless void had finally left him to…simply, be.
Sleep was to heal here; he could have himself a holiday without the worry of growing up so soon.
Maybe, but just after a little nap. Then, he'd wake again and face his brand-new world. Just, maybe.