“A distant version of whom he once was, and whom he always wanted to be.”
The boy’s hands were empty, yet his life was so full. Each and every day was the same routine for him; his hours felt endless, left him exhausted, and his imagination failed to energize him as it had before. The school day alone could make Briar Rose, herself, who’d slept for one hundred years, long for a nap. How could such a life feel everlastingly empty when it was tiresomely full? Could a person turn a page of their life so easily?
The world around him used to be such a beautiful place. It seemed as if when he woke up from his restful night’s sleep, a bright, white ream of paper would be placed in his possession, waiting for him to embellish it with color and new experiences; he was a partner with the pen. Today, the reality was that the paper was already painted with black print thanks to deadlines, projects, mass media, and the crippling weight of life overwhelming his twenty-four hours. There was no escape anymore. There was only one way he could remember what aided his escape from the world’s firm grasp long ago.
Every single night, he would travel to a distant land without his tiny feet ever leaving the ground. Nevertheless, he would soar. His imagination would run wild and free. These dazzling places could be found in the palm of his tiny hand. These places somehow all fit in his bedroom, each one different from the next. He would stay up into the late hours of the night, continuing to explore these fascinating lands in his stories, and never wanting them to leave his reach. Some nights, his best friends were a prince and a princess, while other nights his worst enemy was the wicked and two-faced ice queen, and not the school bully. He remembered when his biggest worry was retrieving the gold that Captain Hook’s swashbuckling pirates had stolen from his kingdom’s treasury. The boy knew that he’d succeed, as these stories that he absorbed daily had taught him that good always prevails. Whenever he needed, his hands would reach out to grab these other worlds- each so beautiful, that it was a shame they were confined to paper.
He waited patiently for the day that the old man who had befriended a giving tree and the gentle huntress of the Enchanted Forest would become his companions once more. The two today would be nothing more than a couple, invoking turned heads if they should walk down the sidewalk together. He feared that he wouldn’t ever recognize them again. The boy was scared of the day that they would become less and less human and they’d return to the condition he had originally found them in, purely words bound to a page.
Before he was a student, he was a king. A hero of Hogwarts. A majestic lion saving the land beyond the wardrobe. A mysterious cat smiling in the night sky. A lost boy. That all changed once the boy started school, and there was no time for these mere works of “fiction.” He became a student. A responsible “adult.” A member of society. A worker. A distant version of whom he once was, and whom he always wanted to be.
The biggest fights he’d have were with his mother about going to sleep. The constant request for 5 more minutes of time with these characters felt like a lifetime that ran far too short. He felt the warmth of his bedside lamp, almost as if it were the midday sun shining about a battlefield. How could a little boy drift off to sleep when he had just flew through the skies on the back of a dragon and fought an evil sorcerer? By the time that he finally heeded his mother’s orders, he would rest his head on the pillow and have nothing to do but to dream of all of the adventures he’d had just moments before.
His world became all work and no play. The kingdom he once so gallantly ruled had to take a backseat while life called shotgun. Nothing would return to “normal” for him when his days went from trips to the seashore, enjoying extravagant vacations, to running to his next class and explaining to an angry teacher why he was late. He began to miss his primary care physician, Dr. Seuss, when he went to his constant orthodontic appointments, so that the doctor could manipulate his smile that had once shined even brighter than the sun.
Time itself used to be an old friend of his, until the day it became the boy’s worst enemy. He was always running out of, longing for more, or not having enough of it. The boy was always fond of Time, especially when there was plenty to spare. Time was so easy to visit, as well; all he had to do was jump through the looking glass, or simply fall down the rabbit hole while following a very tardy rabbit. Sadly, when the clock struck twelve, there was no Fairy Godmother to “bibbidi bobbidi boo” him away from what his life had become.
From a young age, the boy believed in magic. He knew that it existed, and it was always a dream of his to have the power to control it. He’d create his own magic wands out of materials he had found around the house, or even from tree branches in his backyard, hoping, wishing, that one day one of them would work. For a long time, Harry Potter was his best friend. Harry’s life story was exactly what he wanted to happen to him, despite the death of his parents and the war against Voldemort, of course. But soon there was just no time for magic. If it didn’t help him get through the long and grueling day in an easier fashion, it had to be cut. Magic stayed his outlet when he needed an escape from his “reality.” While it may have been childish, the boy believed that magic was hiding somewhere and he just had to find it. Usually, it was found sitting on a shelf in his bedroom.
The boy continued to remember these fond and happy memories of majestic galas, celebrating the coronation of new kings and queens, and of faraway places, all while sitting in his little blue bedroom. He fondly recalled when words he had written on a page were his own stories, and not essays assigned by his teachers. He smiled at the memory of when composition notebooks meant creativity. Now, they meant homework. He used to have marble notebooks filled with his own writing and ideas; his own attempts at creating a world of his own, an escape, inspired by the delicate pages filled with magic and wonder.
Sadly, it was not only the boy who was going through this pain. Countless of his friends used to enrich their young minds with knowledge and magic through literature, but their newly structured lifestyles provided very little time, if any at all, for this. Each of these children had to set their own kingdoms aside and pick up their cell phones, just as the boy had done, to answer the call of reality. They already knew where the wild things were, and they refused the green eggs and ham, no matter how hard Sam I Am insisted. What they did know is that they had to stop pretending and grow up. The boy didn’t want to listen, but his ears were not given the option.
The endless cycle of sleepless nights, hard work, and constant electronic stimulation never stopped. The enchanting and enticing words waited for him, but he wasn’t in any place to allow them back into his life. It was like the covers were locked, the words on one side screaming for him to come back, and the boy on the other wishing he could. Temptation called out to him like an apple in the Garden of Eden, but he knew that if he listened to the deliciously sinister voice, consequences would ensue. Consequences that long ago, he never had to worry about. He silently wished for the day that he would be able to see his old friends once more.
Until then, his crown hung on his throne and collected dust, his kingdom wondered where their noble ruler had gone, and his heart remained empty.