He stands there in the bustling crowd, but he’s the one that stands out of the men, woman and children who are heavily packing boxes into the ship as well as saying goodbye to the soldiers off to war. They all stare at him, then sigh with pity. The poor boy has been through so much, memories ripped from his bare hands, nightmares of roaring fire engulfing a house in flames. The more it parades the more it grows, the shades of sharp orange, blood red and blinding yellow. The evil presence slithering towards him.”Boy! Help your poor hard working mother!” a man says scratching his scruffy beard. The boys velvet magenta coat and pants fit tightly topped with a purple hat and a slick blue feather. He dawdles over to his mother lifting boxes like they’re stones.
“Please cover your face. I’m embarassed,” she says gently brushing her hands along his burned face, along where the flames engulfed him. The elegant flicks of dark red along the side of his face.
“Embarassed? That I survived? That I’m healthy.”
“No! It’s just-”
“It’s just nothing! It’s just that you can’t accept me for who I am, that I was almost burned alive.”
“You know it’s not like that I just don’t want you to be made fun of.”
“Really? That’s your excuse for you not wanting to be a mother of an injured child? Because you don’t want to be the one known for ‘That girl with the burned kid’.”
She walks away in disgust but guilt never will overcme him because it’s the truth.