The Boy in the Window

 

I can't tell you why I wanted to die.  All I can tell you about is the boy who saved me.  He appeared at the very moment my despair was reaching its peak.  I was lying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, thinking about the uselessness of it all when he appeared to me from the window.  My first thought was that I'd slipped into a dream and projected in him my unconscious wish of somehow getting back to that golden age of innocence he represented, when life meant nothing and the bliss of being a child meant you could still enjoy it.  There were no expectations back then, no duties, no designs to win the love of someone, or pressure to earn money.  Love was unconditional and everything you needed was provided for.  I could see in his eyes that he had no notion of what adulthood might do to him.  Maybe he would be better able to handle the changes demanded by it than I have, but that isn't the point.  The point is he wasn't a dream; I really was looking at the glowing face of a child who hadn't been scarred by years of loss, failure, and the terrible stagnation that came with it. 

He looked curious, as boys often do when looking in windows they aren't supposed to be looking in.  After being momentarily startled, I gathered my composure and went to the window to open it. 

"Excuse me," he said.  "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but would you please write me a story?" 

"A story?  A story about what?", I asked. 

"Anything", the boy said, simply. 

Life is so strange.  One minute you're contemplating suicide, and the next you're writing a story for a child you don't even know. 

He waited patiently inside my bedroom while I wrote it.  The hours ticked away through the long night, as steady as the branches on a swaying tree.  Once it was finished, I was quite proud of myself, and thought that maybe living wasn't so bad after all.  Nothing elevates the heart more than an act of creation.  It upset me then when the boy read my story and soon grew tired of it, electing to look at the wall instead. 

"Is there something wrong?", I asked. 

"It's all so sad.  An eight-year-old boy is so good at basketball that he beats his own father.  His father doesn't like it, so he beats him in his own way, a very bad way.  The boy doesn't like living in fear of his father from day to day, it's too painful.  Where love is supposed to bloom between them, there is only fear in place of it.  So, he digs himself a hole so deep that he might hide from his father for the rest of his days.  But as he's digging, his shovel hits the wooden surface of a door, a door to another world, a door to a place where his father can never hurt him again.  The boy steps through and all he can see is traffic, buildings, and machines.  It was actually a good story, until that happened.  I would have really liked it if the boy found a better world." 

"What world would he have found if you'd written it?" 

"In the door there would have been a tropical beach surrounded by limestone mountains, with bright green vines curling down their sides.  Up above, over the ocean, there would be a city in the sky, a city of floating islands connected by bridges.  The islands would have towering trees cut into the shape of spires, and sea birds would be carrying goods between them.  The people living in the trees would make their living carving figures out of the wood, as items to trade with other cities.  Most famously, the city would be known for having a great sports league, in which the islands would play a game called aerowars with each other.  In aerowars, the islands would launch balls at each other to try and score baskets against enemy islands.  The farther away the island, the more points a thrower would earn for scoring.  A special ability of these islands would be their mobility- they'd be driven by team captains trying to get in better position for scoring and defending.  The city would be called Aerobora, a mix of all the tree planting with the sport they invented." 

This kid has some imagination, I thought.  Sometimes the most awesome visions come from children. 

"Very well.  I will change the ending, so that the boy can spend the rest of his days playing aerowars and planting trees on islands in the sky.  But what happens after he grows up?" 

"He doesn't grow up," the child said with conviction.  "Ever." 

"All boys grow up," I countered. 

"Not me." 

What a curious response.  A boy who didn't want to grow up was bound to get behind in life, the same way I had.  This Peter Pan wannabee was going to be very disappointed when he realized he would have to become an adult like everyone else.  "Something terrible will happen to the boy, which will force him to grow up.  It happens to everyone, and it will happen to you", was my response.  I didn't want to cause him any fear, but I felt it was my duty to warn him that things wouldn't always be peachy.  It wasn't working.  Instead of looking resolute against any forces that might disturb him, he looked frightened. 

"What will happen to me?", he asked. 

"I don't know, it could be anything.  Take me for instance.  It was the divorce of my parents that caused me to forget the carefree days of my youth.  The wall dividing my family enclosed me on all sides, forcing me to find refuge in the outside world.  While other children were having fun playing the games that children play, I was being introduced to the games adults play, like finding work to help support my mother, learning the facts and figures that people of society must know, and wooing any girl who fancied me.  Slowly my heart got eaten away by these beasts of growth, and I started to see fun as a distraction from the games that grown-ups play.  Yes, I grew to hate the fun of children and love the fun of adults." 

He looked horrified.  I must have been a monster to expose this terrible fate on such a young lad.  Adult games were nothing like the kind of fun children's games provided; they were entirely oriented around taking responsibility and making a living.  Worrying about how one is perceived because of how much success (or lack thereof) they've had; how far they've gotten in their career; how attractive their significant other is.  The rules of these games were far more rigid and permanent.  They didn't last thirty minutes and cause fits of giggles.  Not unless you were drinking booze, anyway. 

"It seems to me adult games are all a waste of time," the boy reflected.  "They strive for things that mean nothing in the end.  In the end, nothing they achieve really matters." 

He'd read my mind.  That's what I'd been thinking about a mere thirty minutes ago, when I wanted to die.  But something inside me wanted to console the boy, so I thought of the best thing to say in reply.  To be honest it probably consoled me more to say it than the boy himself. 

"That isn't always true.  Many parents work hard so their children can lead better lives when they are gone.  That is the ultimate prize in playing adult games- making sure children like you grow up in healthy environments and pass on the fruits of adult achievements.  If nobody achieved anything, civilization wouldn't get anywhere." 

The boy finally looked away from the wall and smiled at me.  "I suppose you're right.  But if all that's true, then why do you want to die?" 

"How did you know I want to die?", I asked, perplexed.  Perhaps he had been in my head all along. 

"The painting on the wall.  It's a very sad painting.  That balloon can go nowhere but up into the storm." 

"Not unless the wind changes direction," I said, moving to sit next to him.  The painting was a copy of The Lost Balloon by William Holbrock Beard.  As it floated up into dark clouds of the storm, I told him, "Sometimes all you need is a push in the right direction.  The storms are everywhere; a man must learn to steer his balloon if he is to avoid them.  I had to learn on my own, which is why I've lost the game.  Nobody ever showed me how to land on my own two feet.  After the divorce I never saw my father again, and my mother was always too busy supporting us to teach me anything." 

"The storm in the painting is like the world you imagined for that boy in the story." 

"Yes, it's the city of machines.  The jungle, as they say, wild and repressive.  But some day I will finally learn how to steer my balloon, so that better days may lie ahead." 

Together we looked at the painting in silence for the rest of the night.  Around sunrise I must have dozed off, because I woke to find that the boy had gone.  In his absence I found that the painting on the wall had been replaced.  Instead of the balloon sadly being taken up by a storm, I saw it rising into a city of islands in the sky, where a prosperous community was thriving, and balls were being launched at baskets between them.  It was a city just like the one the boy in the window had described: Aerobora. 

Outside I heard the wind change direction.  I never thought about suicide again.