When he was a boy, he woke up early one morning to a bright light streaming in through the window. It lit up the room and seeped through his closed eyes, and in a darkened mind that once dreamed of a field of poppies the boy had seen years before, a sheet of white decimated all signs of life and clung to the ground and sky. The boy was lost in a dreamed blizzard, blinded by the sun's reflected glare, and was pulled violently back to the waking world.
He cowered behind his covers at first, growing more brave when it became clear that nothing bad was happening to him. He crawled from his bed and looked around the room. Everything still had its definition. The toy-box against the wall had its smooth curves and the gap between the base and the cover. The blanket still wrapped around him like a shroud was covered with a million folds that he absently tugged on as he tried to make sense of what was happening. But there was no color to the world, only an intense white glow that left no shadow.
There was no sound from the other side of the window. There was no odd scent in the air. Only his vision betrayed him, so he crept up to his window, pulled the white curtains aside, and peered out at the world beyond. But there was only light.
It was painful to look at anything for very long, but the boy's curiosity could not be dissuaded. He likened it to staring at the sun, which his father had warned him against many times before. But he couldn't help it. He had to look--if only because now, he could see something else outside, something vague, only a shape, but it was there. He could see something moving in the light.
He stared at it for what felt like hours, and it did not go away. It was something special, he knew. He was only a child, but even children know when they've seen something remarkable. This was a moment that he would remember for the rest of his life, and he intended to make it last as long as possible. There was a feeling of warmth--not physically, but emotionally. The light made him feel important and gave him a strange sort of encouragement, and yet it was just a light.
When he finally gave in, after his eyes began to sting and his head began to ache, he returned to his bed and lay there with eyes shut tight. There was no hope for sleep now, but at least he could find rest and some small amount of peace away from the still chaos of the light. Dreaming proved impossible, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to let his mind wander, to find himself back in that field of poppies before the snow fell, but there was no hope. Even in his mind, all he could imagine was light and an indistinct shape moving within.
When morning came, the light faded with the rising sun, and color and shadow returned to the room. Everything was the way it should have been. Only then did the boy fall asleep once again.
The next day, he sat down with a plain, white sheet of paper and a box of colored markers. He intended to capture and recreate what he had seen, but he had no idea how to begin to describe something that was so personal and emotional. He left the sheet of paper blank--solid white--the most suitable tribute that sprang to his mind.
He never mentioned what he had seen to anyone. His parents never knew, nor did his friends. Keeping the secret was his own decision and one of his first expressions of self-control. He knew no one else would ever understand how he felt or why, especially since he couldn't understand it himself. It was simply something that happened. He witnessed something important, and he was content with that much.
As the boy grew older, he became further detached from the world around him. He spent less time with his friends and gave little thought to the family around him. Instead, he was happy alone with his books, absorbed in stories far less fantastic than the things he himself could imagine, yet he became inspired, knowing that someday he could create great things of his own--meaningful things.
Adventures in space and time were born in his head. They had clear beginnings and resolutions. People, alien creatures, and strange machines lived and died in his imagination, and he began to wonder if they were truly his own creations or simply pieces of things that he had glimpsed through a window many years before.
So he began to create, to make concrete the ideas that circulated through his brain. He picked up paper, like the sheet he had once left blank, and filled it in, black against white. He molded shapes and ideas from nothing, destroying empty space with his creation.
Though he felt a clear purpose, he still felt unfulfilled. It was as if there was something missing, and the answers he lacked were no longer an avoidable gap. He wanted to reach out into the world and find something to make himself whole. He wanted to know if there were others like him, staring up at the clear night sky and wondering if there was more to life than a series of random coincidences.
He began to see things--at first small occurrences in the corners of his eyes, only those places where he wasn't looking. Then slowly, bit by bit, he discovered that the world around him was not the only world there was. There was something else, hidden just beneath the surface.
The boy more and more desired to share his creations with the outside world, to let others know what he had seen, and to do so, he had a journey to make. He traveled west, following the same path that pioneers had taken hundreds of years before. This was a voyage of discovery, both of the self and the universe as a whole, and the boy became a man.
So it was that one day the man found himself on a bus to the city of Los Angeles, not knowing what to expect or how to find any further signs. He threw his backpack across one shoulder and carried a heavy suitcase with his other hand, and he stepped out into a city that was tinged with a blue light around the edges. This was an electric place. Power surged through the air like wind, overwhelming the senses at first, but it all became balanced. The man could feel the energy of this city and all of the machines in it.
A sound caught his attention. He could hear a pained, low moan around the corner of the building, just out of reach of the street lamp that suddenly flickered on, carving out a small island of yellow light in the approaching darkness. The man's curiosity blazed similarly, oscillating before settling into a prolonged hum that drowned out every other sound and image that flashed across his mind. He crept close to the source of the noise.
In the middle of the alley lay a body, still and surrounded by a suitcase and a backpack that had been neatly placed against the bus station wall. The yellow lamp light revealed little, but the blue glow of the city showed him everything he needed to know. The body was that of another boy, one years younger. His eyes were closed, but his chest heaved sharply with every breath.
"Are you all right?" the man asked, but the younger boy did not answer.
Then the man noticed something else: a pocket knife in his hand, the blade coated in blood. The younger boy's opposite sleeve was rolled up, exposing a gash across his wrist. Blood streamed down his arm in thin strands, staining his surrounding flesh with the color of a sunset.
"Oh God," the man muttered.
He dropped his bags on the cold pavement and sprinted back inside the bus station to find help. A few passengers sat waiting in orange plastic chairs for their next bus, completely unaware that another life was ending on the other side of the concrete wall. A clerk sat vacantly behind the counter, a telephone poised right in front of him.
"Call an ambulance!"
The clerk stared, dumbfounded.
"There's a boy bleeding to the death in the alley. Call an ambulance."
As if just waking up, the clerk's eyes widened. He quickly reached for the phone in front of him and dialed 911, stuttering as he told the emergency operator what was happening.
The man ran back to the alley, back to the younger boy and their respective baggage. He hadn't moved. He still breathed, so the man knew there was hope yet. He approached the younger boy carefully, kneeling down beside him on the cold pavement.
"Can you hear me, kid?"
A quiet moan, like an exasperated final exhale, left the younger boy's trembling lips.
"I can hear you," said a voice, slowly. It was the sound of air, venting.
"Good. You're going to be okay," said the man, affirming himself more than the boy bleeding to death.
There came another moan, like a grating, whispered laugh.
"What's your name?" asked the man, desperate to maintain some sort of contact and unwilling to let the younger boy die nameless, by himself in a dark alleyway.
Sirens blared across the streets, coming closer and closer. Flashing red lights reverberated through every intersection. An ambulance swung around the corner, coming to a halt right in front of the yellow street lamp, and paramedics descended from every corner.
The man stood up and backed away from the body, letting the emergency workers do their jobs. The ones around the body quickly applied a tourniquet while two others wheeled a gurney to the mouth of the alley. The man, feeling useless, glanced at the younger boy's neatly placed bags. The backpack was open, exposing the contents hidden below. The man saw a stack of thick books and a small vinyl figurine that made his eyes widen and refuse to blink.
"Do you know what happened?" one of the paramedics asked him, breaking his trance.
"No, I'm sorry. I got here too late."
"All right. He's lost a lot of blood. We'll have to get him to the hospital."
The man nodded as he watched the younger boy being picked up from the cold asphalt and pulled away on the metal gurney.
"Do you know the victim? We've got room for one, but we have to leave now."
The man stared back at the open backpack on the ground and the small pool of blood beside it.
"Yeah. Yeah, I do. He's my brother."
He cowered behind his covers at first, growing more brave when it became clear that nothing bad was happening to him. He crawled from his bed and looked around the room. Everything still had its definition. The toy-box against the wall had its smooth curves and the gap between the base and the cover. The blanket still wrapped around him like a shroud was covered with a million folds that he absently tugged on as he tried to make sense of what was happening. But there was no color to the world, only an intense white glow that left no shadow.
There was no sound from the other side of the window. There was no odd scent in the air. Only his vision betrayed him, so he crept up to his window, pulled the white curtains aside, and peered out at the world beyond. But there was only light.
It was painful to look at anything for very long, but the boy's curiosity could not be dissuaded. He likened it to staring at the sun, which his father had warned him against many times before. But he couldn't help it. He had to look--if only because now, he could see something else outside, something vague, only a shape, but it was there. He could see something moving in the light.
He stared at it for what felt like hours, and it did not go away. It was something special, he knew. He was only a child, but even children know when they've seen something remarkable. This was a moment that he would remember for the rest of his life, and he intended to make it last as long as possible. There was a feeling of warmth--not physically, but emotionally. The light made him feel important and gave him a strange sort of encouragement, and yet it was just a light.
When he finally gave in, after his eyes began to sting and his head began to ache, he returned to his bed and lay there with eyes shut tight. There was no hope for sleep now, but at least he could find rest and some small amount of peace away from the still chaos of the light. Dreaming proved impossible, no matter how hard he tried. He wanted to let his mind wander, to find himself back in that field of poppies before the snow fell, but there was no hope. Even in his mind, all he could imagine was light and an indistinct shape moving within.
When morning came, the light faded with the rising sun, and color and shadow returned to the room. Everything was the way it should have been. Only then did the boy fall asleep once again.
The next day, he sat down with a plain, white sheet of paper and a box of colored markers. He intended to capture and recreate what he had seen, but he had no idea how to begin to describe something that was so personal and emotional. He left the sheet of paper blank--solid white--the most suitable tribute that sprang to his mind.
He never mentioned what he had seen to anyone. His parents never knew, nor did his friends. Keeping the secret was his own decision and one of his first expressions of self-control. He knew no one else would ever understand how he felt or why, especially since he couldn't understand it himself. It was simply something that happened. He witnessed something important, and he was content with that much.
As the boy grew older, he became further detached from the world around him. He spent less time with his friends and gave little thought to the family around him. Instead, he was happy alone with his books, absorbed in stories far less fantastic than the things he himself could imagine, yet he became inspired, knowing that someday he could create great things of his own--meaningful things.
Adventures in space and time were born in his head. They had clear beginnings and resolutions. People, alien creatures, and strange machines lived and died in his imagination, and he began to wonder if they were truly his own creations or simply pieces of things that he had glimpsed through a window many years before.
So he began to create, to make concrete the ideas that circulated through his brain. He picked up paper, like the sheet he had once left blank, and filled it in, black against white. He molded shapes and ideas from nothing, destroying empty space with his creation.
Though he felt a clear purpose, he still felt unfulfilled. It was as if there was something missing, and the answers he lacked were no longer an avoidable gap. He wanted to reach out into the world and find something to make himself whole. He wanted to know if there were others like him, staring up at the clear night sky and wondering if there was more to life than a series of random coincidences.
He began to see things--at first small occurrences in the corners of his eyes, only those places where he wasn't looking. Then slowly, bit by bit, he discovered that the world around him was not the only world there was. There was something else, hidden just beneath the surface.
The boy more and more desired to share his creations with the outside world, to let others know what he had seen, and to do so, he had a journey to make. He traveled west, following the same path that pioneers had taken hundreds of years before. This was a voyage of discovery, both of the self and the universe as a whole, and the boy became a man.
So it was that one day the man found himself on a bus to the city of Los Angeles, not knowing what to expect or how to find any further signs. He threw his backpack across one shoulder and carried a heavy suitcase with his other hand, and he stepped out into a city that was tinged with a blue light around the edges. This was an electric place. Power surged through the air like wind, overwhelming the senses at first, but it all became balanced. The man could feel the energy of this city and all of the machines in it.
A sound caught his attention. He could hear a pained, low moan around the corner of the building, just out of reach of the street lamp that suddenly flickered on, carving out a small island of yellow light in the approaching darkness. The man's curiosity blazed similarly, oscillating before settling into a prolonged hum that drowned out every other sound and image that flashed across his mind. He crept close to the source of the noise.
In the middle of the alley lay a body, still and surrounded by a suitcase and a backpack that had been neatly placed against the bus station wall. The yellow lamp light revealed little, but the blue glow of the city showed him everything he needed to know. The body was that of another boy, one years younger. His eyes were closed, but his chest heaved sharply with every breath.
"Are you all right?" the man asked, but the younger boy did not answer.
Then the man noticed something else: a pocket knife in his hand, the blade coated in blood. The younger boy's opposite sleeve was rolled up, exposing a gash across his wrist. Blood streamed down his arm in thin strands, staining his surrounding flesh with the color of a sunset.
"Oh God," the man muttered.
He dropped his bags on the cold pavement and sprinted back inside the bus station to find help. A few passengers sat waiting in orange plastic chairs for their next bus, completely unaware that another life was ending on the other side of the concrete wall. A clerk sat vacantly behind the counter, a telephone poised right in front of him.
"Call an ambulance!"
The clerk stared, dumbfounded.
"There's a boy bleeding to the death in the alley. Call an ambulance."
As if just waking up, the clerk's eyes widened. He quickly reached for the phone in front of him and dialed 911, stuttering as he told the emergency operator what was happening.
The man ran back to the alley, back to the younger boy and their respective baggage. He hadn't moved. He still breathed, so the man knew there was hope yet. He approached the younger boy carefully, kneeling down beside him on the cold pavement.
"Can you hear me, kid?"
A quiet moan, like an exasperated final exhale, left the younger boy's trembling lips.
"I can hear you," said a voice, slowly. It was the sound of air, venting.
"Good. You're going to be okay," said the man, affirming himself more than the boy bleeding to death.
There came another moan, like a grating, whispered laugh.
"What's your name?" asked the man, desperate to maintain some sort of contact and unwilling to let the younger boy die nameless, by himself in a dark alleyway.
Sirens blared across the streets, coming closer and closer. Flashing red lights reverberated through every intersection. An ambulance swung around the corner, coming to a halt right in front of the yellow street lamp, and paramedics descended from every corner.
The man stood up and backed away from the body, letting the emergency workers do their jobs. The ones around the body quickly applied a tourniquet while two others wheeled a gurney to the mouth of the alley. The man, feeling useless, glanced at the younger boy's neatly placed bags. The backpack was open, exposing the contents hidden below. The man saw a stack of thick books and a small vinyl figurine that made his eyes widen and refuse to blink.
"Do you know what happened?" one of the paramedics asked him, breaking his trance.
"No, I'm sorry. I got here too late."
"All right. He's lost a lot of blood. We'll have to get him to the hospital."
The man nodded as he watched the younger boy being picked up from the cold asphalt and pulled away on the metal gurney.
"Do you know the victim? We've got room for one, but we have to leave now."
The man stared back at the open backpack on the ground and the small pool of blood beside it.
"Yeah. Yeah, I do. He's my brother."
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