A Real Boy

The man glanced at the stapler. It was the same one as on anyone else's desk. This one though, in this particular moment, was different. The lifeless fluorescent light bounced off the shiny stapler to come alive. It was the light of a perfect day of summer, and he went there.

The boy stares ahead underneath the soft warmth of the Sun. It smells of grass, and he feels the wet mud squishing beneath his scraggy leather boots. He starts running, slicing between the summer winds. The muddy road stretches to the horizon, cutting through endless oceans of rice fields brimming with rainwater.

The boy runs and runs and never tires and the road never ends. The sky stretches in the calmest blue. The wet road gives with every step he takes. All around him the rice fields sway in the summer breeze.

Finally he tires, and he walks. The rice fields end, replaced by small huts. Women are washing clothes in front of them, watching their children play games only they understand with tiny pebbles. It was warmer here. The breeze that never stopped carries the smell of onion and garlic.

The boy stops. He's looking at an oak tree. The aged titan sways safely and shelters a girl under it. He sits next to her and watches the children play their games and the women pretending to be annoyed, and he sees the fields in the distance. They sit there on a perfect summer day, one that never happens and so it never ends.