The Little Boy

There once was a little boy, who when asked what he wanted to be in life, simply replied: ‘Happy.’

His teacher told him that he wasn’t likely to find happiness in a book, so he wandered into the streets to find someone who was happy.

He first came upon a couple of fisherman, who were telling stories as they cast out their lines. “They sure seem happy,” thought the little boy. So he bought a box of tackle, and cast a fishing line until the sun went down. But he didn’t catch a single thing, and couldn’t get the smell of bait from his fingers for hours.

The little boy then saw a pair of businessmen, who were laughing and smoking cigars as they carried their bulging wallets. “I’ll bet they are happy,” thought the little boy. So he shaved himself for an interview, and filled his wallet with stones until it bulged. However it soon weighed down his pants, and they fell off when he gave out his resume.

The little boy then saw some well-dressed socialites, going to a party. “They look so happy,” thought the little boy. So he bought himself a suit and a hat, and went out to a party. However the trousers didn’t fit well; they flapped around his ankles and tripped him at the entrance.

Then the little boy saw a drunk, singing to himself in the street. “Now there is a man who is happy,” thought the little boy. So he bought himself a bottle of whiskey, but just became sick, and passed out in the gutter.

Finally, the little boy saw a young couple, who were sharing an embrace in the sunset. "They must be happy!" thought the little boy. So he found himself a girlfriend, and immediately thought "Yes, I am happy." But the girl said "I'm unhappy," and promptly walked away.

Melanie

Nearby, a few children were playing a game. The sound of delighted shrieks pierced the air.

Melanie shivered.

Children disgusted her. In their eyes was contained a whole future: pain, suffering; the petty hatreds and jealousies of adolescence; the sex and revelry of their later teenage years and twenties; the prudishness of their thirties; the senility, sickness and despair of retirement. And somewhere in there would be the child’s own children, born after a condom breaks when they are nineteen, or in an elated pre-menopausal midlife crisis; the filthy cycle continuing like a plant that germinates, seeds, and bursts forth in fruit to wither. In their eyes was the future of every dick and sociopath, every pretentious child, every naïve romance and fantasy. And so it would continue, ad infinitum, until her own bones had long been shrivelled to dust.

One of the children fell, scraping her knee. She burst out crying. Her mother rushed over, making hushing noises, while the other kids looked on awkwardly. The game had been extinguished instantly. The cries rose up to shrieks, which burst forth incessantly.

Get used to it, kid. For most of your life you’ll be searching for happiness, and it will always be taken in an instant. That’s the basis of a life. We were born in agony, brought shrieking into the world; most of us haven’t left that state, but have merely become quieter.

Melanie stared down at her coffee. It had grown cold. The milk would have a fatty taste, and a residue of sugar would have settled on the bottom. She left it, and turned to get up. She felt horribly aware of the mass of consciousnesses around her: most of the patrons had turned, awkwardly, towards the screaming girl. The scene concentrated them, channelled it like a flow, and Melanie felt sickened as it washed over her, aware that she was part of the maelstrom.

The screams rose, breaking to a coughing sob, before repeating. What a set of lungs on the child!

Melanie smiled wryly: perhaps she would take up singing. Her parents would make her take piano lessons, and she would be allowed to buy a violin in primary school after much begging. She would play for the grandparents each Christmas, and they would remark how proud they were after each recital.  She would take it in her head to start drawing; after a birthday present of a camera, she would attempt to become a photographer. She would soon convince herself that she had talent, and take pride in it immensely. Her friends would praise her, but she would deflect it deftly - “Oh, I’m quite terrible, really” – and drink in each compliment in secret.  She would read, of course, and dream, and write a diary – considering her thoughts both beautiful and unique. She would read Capote and Plath with rapture, and feel that they had been speaking directly to her. And her parents would be so, so proud when she got accepted to an Art school on a scholarship.

Eventually she would wind up sitting in a café listening to some brat scream.

Melanie bit her lip in a moment of self-disgust. She hadn’t meant for her thoughts to lead that way. A trace of lipstick had been left on her coffee cup. It seemed to her like dried blood.

By the playground, the child was settling down. Her mother was murmuring to her cheerfully, and she was laughing again.

Melanie walked away, a bitter taste left on her lips. 

All Stations

Michael stood in front of the rail tracks, and jumped.

Mentally.

He flung himself out over the chasm that divided the station like a fissure; beyond the lines which demarcated safety, consistency – the certainty of not rushing headlong into a pair of headlights, of not having your legs sheared off by fifty tons of steel and screaming passengers.

He felt himself hit the metal of the track and sprawl out over the gravel; his legs hurt with the impact, and the breath was knocked out of him. His hands grazed, and he felt immediately dusty.

The metal was warm, and vibrated slightly under his fingertips. A woman screamed on the platform; there was the sound of panic and rushing feet.  Michael was aware of it only distantly, as if listening to a conversation underwater. A mother would no doubt be turning her kids away, and a man further on would have buried himself in his newspaper.

The sound of a horn cut everything out, like the apocryphal horn of Gabriel. The line vibrated violently, as if the horsemen of the apocalypse were upon the track, beating the steel with leaden hooves. The roar of the engines combined with the clack-clack sound of carriages on tracks; it’s preceded by a blast of air, drawn out from the tunnel with a leviathan’s fury. A guide-light glared red with uniocular malevolence.

The brakes crescendo to a wailing banshee shriek and Michael has a single momentary view of the driver, a face frozen in a mask of terror. It’s a sight that will forever lie suspended, inscribed upon the glass of an eye’s final glance. Michael’s voice joins in the scream, a mind cauterised of all but terror and regret.

* * *

There’s a brief rush of air, and the train passes harmlessly in front of his eyes. The driver toots the horn to announce its arrival, and a female voice intones over the intercom. “The train arriving on platform three is an airport train, running express all stations from Bowen Hills to Eagle Junction.” There is a hiss of air as passengers disembark. An attendant blows a whistle to that the station is clear, and the train resumes its motion. Michael feels as if he’s about to cry.

“Mum, why is that man standing there like that?”

“Shh, dear. It’s rude to stare. He’s probably just deciding which train to catch.”

Le Fils De L'Homme

There was once a little boy who loved to stick things up his nose. He would stick pens and pencils, seeds and rocks – anything which was small, and would easily fit. It was his favourite past-time, and he considered it a very dignified one at that age.

“Oh now, stop!” his mother cried, as he stuck a coin up his nose. “We don’t have the money to spare, and if you keep sticking things in your nose, something will grow up there.” The little boy was confused. If the dollar would grow, then surely his nose would be a safer investment than the stock market given the state of the current economy. So the little boy didn’t listen.

As he was walking to school, the little boy chanced upon his neighbour, an aborist. A small twig protruded from each nostril like the mighty tusks of a walrus. His neighbour gave an exasperated sigh.

“If you keep sticking things up your nose, it will grow up there!” The little boy gave a happy laugh. Tusk length is a sign of virility among walruses, and a tusk extension could only help his chances come mating season.

At school, the little boy sat at the back of the classroom with an eraser deep within one nostril. He ducked as an eraser came flying towards his head. His teacher burst out, furious: “If you keep sticking things up your nose, something will grow up there!”

Little Betty sighed in the second row: “I wish he would put my heart up his nose so it would grow there,” who at that age had no idea what a terribly unromantic thing that would be.

Walking back from school, the little boy came across a small seed in the middle of the road. He considered it appraisingly, turning it in his hands several times before depositing it in a nostril with artisanal care. Delighted at his newfound fortune, the little boy continued on his way home, making a nasal whistling noise with every breath that he took.

The next morning, the little boy woke to discover a small vine emanating from his nostril. It was slight and green, twisting around his nose like the beginnings of a fine moustache. The little boy was stunned. He was too young for facial hair, let alone any that was green. He curled it contemplatively for a moment before deciding against the rigors of maintenance that a new moustache requires. He yanked against the vine quickly, and smiled as it gave a satisfying ‘snap’.

At school, the little boy was considering which piece of stationary to grant admittance to Chez Nez for the evening, when Little Betty came up to him. “Your moustache is quite pretty,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes. “And green is definitely your colour.”

With a start, the little boy felt towards his nose. Sure enough, curling like the hair of a greased Parisian, was the vine. He dropped the pencil case in despair. The room for rent was occupied.

At the front of the room, the teacher was giving a lecture on parasites. He noticed the vine protruding from the little boy’s nose and smiled.

“Why, there are even plants in the Amazon which are known to grow from a seed high in the branches of a host tree. The parasite sends out little snake-like shoots which curl around the host, strangling the very life out of it. Its roots spread out as the tree rots inside; eventually there’s nothing left except for the hollowed out husk, and a new tree where it once stood.”

The little boy was rooted to the ground with horror, though only figuratively.

Running home from school, the little boy came upon his neighbour again. The vine had begun sprouting leaves, and curved upward like a set of antlers. “You’ve got to help me!” he cried.

His neighbour peered at the branch with a professional interest. “You’ll need to watch closely to make sure it doesn’t get scale or root rot. You see the smallest sign, come straight to me.”

“You’ve got to help me get rid of it!” the little boy cried.

“Why? You’ll make a good tree for my garden!”

The little boy ran home screaming and saw his mother. Wordlessly, he pointed to the developing bush on his forehead. His mother considered it carefully. She had once studied horticulture at university, and was delighted at the chance to show off her skills. “I could trim it if you’d like,” she suggested. “If we get in early, we can shape it into something interesting, like a bunny rabbit or a swan.” Her major had been in hedge manufacture and design.

The little boy burst out crying. He didn’t want to become a rabbit or a swan, let alone one made entirely out of leaves. His tears trickled down his face, where a developing root system drank them greedily.

Resigned to his arboreal fate, the little boy made his way to bed. His mother put out a pot, in case he needed to take root in the night, and couldn’t make it to the garden in time.

In the morning, little boy’s vine had developed into a miniature tree, which sat above his head like a leafy green bowler hat. It would have been unsightly on St Patrick’s Day, and it wasn’t more fashionable now in September. The little boy felt like a bonsai.

At school the teacher was delighted at his transformation. “I had always hoped that you’d branch out into other areas,” he said, and he said it often, as he was proud of the pun.

Little Betty noticed him sitting by himself in the playground. She could see he had wood.

“What are you doing all alone here?” she said. “I think a little foliage adds character to a man. And look – there are even a couple of flowers.” Indeed, the little boy’s tree had burst into bloom with tiny pink and white flowers. “She reached up to pick one, before pulling her hand back with a shout: “Bees!”

Little Betty ran away without a second look.

The little boy’s teacher placed a comforting hand on his back. “Maybe you should just leaf for the day.”

The little boy walked home with a wooden expression on his face. If he was going to become a tree, then so be it. He would just root himself in the soil, and that would be the end of it. A squirrel chattered happily in the branches. The little boy sat down next to a large oak tree in the cemetery and waited.

The little boy sat there patiently, like a botanical Buddha  The wind whistled through his leaves. The squirrel chattered noisily and tried to stick an acorn in his ear. He had been doing his best to think tree-y thoughts, but it was nuts. He jumped up and shook his head violently. The squirrel leapt off in alarm and rushed towards his dislodged acorn. The little boy sat back down, and yelped as something fell into his lap. It was hard, and round, and shiny. The little boy reached up, and sure enough, the tree was filled with apples.

The little boy ran home delightedly. On the way, he ran past Little Betty, who was cradling her stung hand. Without stopping he threw her an apple. Little Betty bit into it carefully, and smiled – he had just become the apple of her eye again.

From that day on, the little boy was renowned for his apples, which were both juicy and sweet, and could be baked into the most delicious of pies. He eventually became quite wealthy with a cider he produced from the fruit, until the FDA caught wind of it, and he was shut down for numerous health code violations.