the boy

The boy had never before left the forest.  Thick, tall, perfectly straight pines; gnarled, ancient, lumbering oaks; dense, protective undergrowth highlighted by occasional bursts of sunlight: these were all he knew.  Nestled among a stand of pines stood the cabin.  Here he had been born, took his first steps, and learned to survive nature's fury.

This was his world.

There was no need to leave; everything his family needed for their survival was within walking distance.  Their life was a simple one, no cloth, no glass, no books.  These were things he had heard of only from his father and mother, who had raised him wholly within the confines of the forest's protective shade.

Some days, he would walk just beyond the cabin to a small clearing.  He'd lay down in the tall grass and soak in the sun's rays.  And he'd dream of the world outside the forest, a world he'd heard of only through story.  He'd wonder what it'd be like to live in a world where clearings stretched for miles on end.  He'd wonder what it would be like to have neighbors, what it'd be like to go to a store, how it'd feel to be in love.

But this was his world.

All that he knew of the outside had taken on mythical proportions - not having experienced it relegated it to the realm of the unknown.

This was his world.

One day, all of this changed.  His mother got ill, and, beside himself, his father went for help.

When the doctor came, the boy didn't know how to act.  This invasion of his world was unprecedented and strange.  He sat quietly in the corner, watching this strangely dressed, strangely mannered man.

And when the doctor left, the boy wondered what it might be like to go with him.

But this was his world.

And then, the unthinkable happened.  First his mother succumbed, then his father fell sick.  Within days they were both dead.  The boy was alone.

For days, the boy stayed in the cabin.

And then, one day, he inexplicably rose, gathered a sack with his few possessions, and began to walk.  He walked straight east for several days, stopping only to sleep and eat.

And he came to the edge of the forest.  Blinded by the vista before him, the boy ran back into the shelter of the towering pines.  He hunkered behind a large tree, considering the options before him.  Back to the cabin, or into the unknown.  Back to the safety of the only world he had ever known, or forward into a world filled with life.

The boy rose, picked up his sack, and walked back to his cabin.

Seasons passed.  The boy grew while the world around him remained unchanged.

And always he felt the pull of the unknown.  After a glimpse of the endless grass, the clearing was no longer enough.  So he took to making a journey every few months to the forest's edge, where he would stare out at the endless prairie.

One day, while he stood at the forest's edge watching the grass sway in the wind, a man on a horse rode by.  Shrinking back into the trees, the boy watched him pass with wide eyes.

And when the man had passed by, the boy rose and walked out into the sunlight.

And kept walking.