Tuesday, February 16, 2016

2016 project- one last inspiration

one more "inspiration" before I stop

once upon a time there was a six-year-old boy who listened fearfully as his father told him what the doctors had concluded after testing him for days about his heart and how it behaved.  "you must never run.  you must never play competitive games.  you must never climb alone.  you must never...."  what he heard, of course, was "you must give up being a boy" over and over and over again.  after the doctors and his father left him alone in his room in the hospital, he stared gloomily at the ceiling.  he imagined his heart swallowing him.  it didn't do that.  it never had.  he'd had the same heart since he was born, and he'd run and played soccer and climbed rock faces that scared him and trees that he'd convinced himself might support him.  now he'd been brought up to be a good little boy, and mostly he had been, so he didn't have quite this language yet, but as nearly as a six year old boy can express this, he decided not to trust doctors ever again, and as for their alleged advice, he said to the ceiling, "fuck you!  I am a boy, and no stupid advice is gonna stop me."  he stuck out his tongue at the ceiling, then closed his eyes and slept, smiling.

No comments:

Post a Comment