Sons of the Zone [Part 2]: The Boy

I awoke. My ears were ringing, my head pounded, and I felt a waning sickness in my stomach. Weakly pushing myself up so that I could prepare to stand and move, my head swivelled and my eyes darted all about, trying to survey my surroundings and process the bright colours that blinded me in my wretched condition. The room had somewhat returned to its original state, except that certain objects are now twisted and wrong – some of the trees have sections of them displaced and stretched, as if someone has pulled out the top half of one of the trees a good meter away from the bottom half of the trunk and left it there, floating unnaturally. There are chunks carved out of the grassy floor, as if huge objects had been dropped into it and then swiftly removed, leaving enormous, well-defined dents and craters in it without scuffing or damaging the grass at all. There are patches of the room that are darker than others, but with no objects causing any shadows in those areas. I sat there for some time, waiting for my vision to stop swimming, and for the nausea in my belly to recede a little more so that I may stand without throwing up what little I had in my stomach.

After standing, somewhat hunched over with my hand on my knee to stabilise myself, I became aware of movement near the statue of the boy. The movement was only slight – one of the red conical shapes was wiggling slightly. The pink domed base of it also seemed to be moving- rising, actually. I watched cautiously as more of the pink dome revealed itself as it seemingly wriggled free of the dirt surrounding it. As the dome rose, two widely-spaced black slits on its surface appeared just above the grass. Then it stopped moving. Suddenly, the slits opened up into two black circles. The circles widened after a few seconds and then the form started to wriggle and rise out of the dirt again; this time with more urgency. The dirt around the domed base shifted and was pushed out of the way as it protruded more, and suddenly another small black slit appeared on its surface. I realised the dome was tapering off and curving once again – this was no dome, it was a sphere – a ball. Then it clicked. I looked at the statue of the boy and then back down to the little pink face that stared back at me. A spitting image of the boy’s head. He looked me dead in the eyes as he pushed upwards from the ground, and chunks of dirt rolled away to reveal his two round arms, which were also pink – and then his torso, which was blue, or was perhaps clothed in some kind of blue shirt or tunic. I was deeply curious, but I felt my fight and flight senses were both in position at the starting line, ready for the gun to fire. He used his nubby arms to push the rest of his body out of the dirt, eventually flopping forward onto his front, and then rolling onto his back with his limbs flailing a little as he rocked from side-to-side in order to right himself. He finally managed to roll onto his front again, after seemingly realising that this would be the best position from which to stand up, and he pushed himself up unsteadily. He stood there, swaying somewhat as he acclimated himself with the feeling of being above ground. He seemed to stand a good few feet tall – his hat adding height to him, of course. His eyes were firmly affixed on mine - the little feller didn’t appear to be all that bright at a glance, there was little going on behind those black circular “eyes”, and I noticed he was dribbling a bit from his mouth, which hung agape in a gleeful expression.

Suddenly, his leg swung to the side and he made a sloppy attempt at a step forward towards me, as if he had never walked before. Thinking back on it now, that makes a lot of sense what with him having been buried like a potato, and having probably been above ground for all of a minute at that point in time. He looked down at his feet, then fixed his eyes on me once again – the drool had travelled slightly farther down his chin. Then, seemingly more confident, and with surprising speed the boy wobbled towards me with arms outstretched like a child reaching in anticipation for something they desire deeply. I will admit that maybe my reaction to this was a little extreme, but he did catch me off-guard. He quickly closed the gap between us, and in my panic I engaged my hamstring, quadriceps, and foot in my right leg and punted the pink lad about 8 feet away, with a kick that squarely connected with the underside of his stomach. He let out a surprised “OO-” sound in a fairly high pitched tone that sounded like some kind of little creature from a cartoon. His hat had fallen off at the point where my foot had connected with him and his flight had begun. I looked over to where the boy had landed, he was just laying there with a smile on his face, his head then lifted up, and he looked me dead in the eyes again. I looked down at his hat which lay at my feet. I bent down to get a better look at it, periodically looking up to the boy who was once again prepping himself to stand upright. My hand reached out to touch the hat; I felt a warmth emanating from it - how strange. The tips of my fingers touched it lightly, it felt a little moist, like there was thin film of condensation on its surface... I noticed something growing closer in my peripheral vision – the boy had stood up in record time and was already upon me, barreling towards me at great speed with a seemingly concerned expression on his face. He was not looking at me, however, his eyes were firmly glued to his hat. Caught off-guard, I lost my balance and fell back, scrambling backwards and away from the hat a few feet as the boy practically dove onto it and frantically plopped it back on top of his head as if his very life depended on it. As soon as he was wearing his hat once more, the worried expression left him, and the goofy, vacant smile returned to his face.

The boy’s head swivelled to me once more and he simply stood there, staring at me. Slowly, I moved my legs back round and underneath me so that I could rise into a slightly squatted position with my hands on my knees. I looked back at the boy, and then back at the statue. The similarities are uncanny – the eyes, the mouth, the hat, the round body and limbs. The boy continued to stand there. I took a step sideways so that I could circle around him and get a better look at something on the statue that I had previously overlooked - a plaque situated on the base of the plinth on which the stone boy stood. Looking back and forth between the plaque and the pink lad who was now standing not far from the statue and myself, I moved closer to the plaque to read the message engraved into it. Parts of the writing seemed to be somehow smudged, stretched, or somewhat obliterated, as if the person who engraved the message had grown bored and decided to carve random lines and grooves into the metal where words should be. I knelt down and read aloud: “In memory – brave boy, -gave up. My Son”.

I looked over to the boy who was on my left; he hadn’t moved, and was still staring at me. I sighed deeply, and stood up, groaning a little with the effort it took. I felt like all the energy had been sapped out of me, and realised I really needed to find somewhere to properly rest. I plonked my behind down on the edge of the plinth’s base and pinched the bridge of my nose and blinked hard a couple of times. I was about to open my mouth to think aloud, but then I suddenly heard a noise- no, noises, from all around me. My eyes flicked over to where I noticed movement. One of the other hats that was closest to me had also started to move, and I noticed another set of circular black eyes that had opened, and another fat pink head had started to wriggle upwards. I span my head around to look behind me to the other side of the statue, and then I looked to my left. They were all moving; shifting the dirt around them. With no energy left, I slumped forward with my elbows on my knees, and my face in my palms. I thought to myself that maybe I too should dig myself a hole, and get some rest under a blanket of the moist turf. I could feel the boy’s stare boring into me.