There once was a little boy who longed for nothing but to able to play outside. He would sit in his chair with his long almond eyes, staring outside at the cold gray skies. The children outside with their mother's homemade red scarves and lying in the snow making their snow angels and made him burn with envy.
This little boy did not let that get to him; his immobile body sits on that chair with longing eyes and hoped to at least be able to become an almond tree so at least he would not be stuck in this white room. Miss. Nurse would run her hands through his curly dark hair and whisper softly in his ear, "Don't worry, the doctor's and God are working on it. Just pray every day and hope maybe your wish will be granted."
The little boy then sits in his paralyzed state and though he wants to grip on to something with his hand in frustration, he can only watch and mumble, his mind tenses up, and a single tear drops from his eye.
In the six years of his life, never has the sky looked so beautiful on that gray day. His parents could be seen in the clouds, it was their reflection against the window pane, standing behind him placing their hands on his fragile shoulders as a sign of comfort. Their leathered faces showed decay despite their youthful marriage.
The doctors and nurses would always talk about how fortunate it was that such a lovely couple would still see their paralyzed vegetable like son even after all the toils they've gone through to stop yelling at home and breaking things. “They were on the verge of divorce.” said a nurse to them often, who just so happened to have a friend of a friend who knew the wife said the wife always talked of separation but could never because of the child stuck in the chair.
The boy would always know when the secrets were whispered about him and hold back his despair as he listened with his ears, which had nothing better to do but listen. It was all he could do, was to listen and see. He could never touch or feel or even taste a thing, hardly even smell a thing.
He lived everyday like that. He was tormented by the children so much, that one day a nurse put up a sign that said, “NO PLAYING”. It was for his sake really, the nurse could tell his eyes were longing for enjoyment and the ability to have laughter.
“Oh yeah, he certainly is a thinker. Look at his eyes, can’t you tell they are full of curiosity and wonder.” That’s what the very same nurse who put up the sign would say about him to visitors of the other patients. She smiled to when she said it; the boy would often move his eyes over in her direction.
“Oh my, I wonder what’s going on through his head right now; he looks like he just had a light bulb go off.” What he would be thinking about whenever she did say that was at least someone understands that I’m not just a vegetable.
Yet, it was kind of ironic when she put that sign up, and his desire to go outside and play was even stronger than before. He wished to be able to swing up to the sky and fly on the imaginary swing set he would often employ in his head.
The boy would often wake up breathing heavily some nights; it was all he could do to show he was having a night mare. The perspiration swelled to floods sometimes, soaking his clothes. These were the times he would be relieved to be in that dark blank room.
His nightmares often consisted of him waking up and all of a sudden being able to walk and run and play. His mother and father would be all smiles and watching him open his presents on Christmas Day. He could never be sure it was a dream or not, his parent’s images were a blur, the Christmas tree he would vaguely recall going on a trip with dad to cut it down and decorate it upon bringing it home, and his presents were all nonsense, pure blissful nonsense. His finally wake up call that it wasn’t real, was that his speech was all of a sudden incoherent and he could not get his presents to work. That was when his parents suddenly burst into flame and disappeared.
The nurse would then wake up with her sensitive ears when he did wake up and come to check his tubes. She would wrap his wool blankets around him and caress his hair as she embraced him until he fell asleep in her arms.
He often wondered why they put him in front of the window. Why did they torture him by taking away the kids, at least then it hurt less. He felt alone when those kids weren’t there down below, playing. He remembered when his dad brought the recliner. He was the one who insisted it; his reason for it was that it had the comforts of home. “At least it won’t be so monotonous here; it looks so dull with all these white hospital beds. Here, we’ll even give him a change of scenery, I don’t think he likes laying down staring at the ceiling all day.”
He smiled a little when he remembered that, at how ironic it was to place him in front of a window with kids playing all the time as he was in such a catatonic state, and to think it would make things better but just worse.
Then it was one day on another gray day when he was recalling his past life that a dove came and flew by only to land on the window ledge outside. His eyes became spectators and all of a sudden the dove looked at him as if offering a spirit to him.
The moment didn’t last; the nurse came by and tapped the window, seeing it as disturbance to the boy. He watched as the bird flew away towards the dull gray sun.
Later, he would be found laying in his recliner staring at the sun and in his own mind he would finally be set free. He would be sitting so still with motionless eyes, but in his mind he was liberated from the chair, he was flying like a snow angel, spreading his arms and legs, he was swinging to the maximum height, he was going beyond the limit of human perception.
His curly hair would be free and he would feel the air and the wind in his lungs, smell and taste victory on his own. He would be screaming at the top of his lungs, “I am free.”
