vrijdag 8 april 2011

The sad little boy


Once upon a time there was a little boy named Charlie. He lived in a nice house, in the middle of a nice and quiet street. The houses were lined in two equal rows. On the other side the houses with the odd numbers, on Charlie’s side the houses with the even numbers. The numbering on his side of the street started at 10, nobody knew why. But that is why the house where Charlie lived had number 18, even though it was only the fifth house in the row. He often fantasized about the numbers 2 to 8. Sometimes they were wiped out of existence by a big storm that lifted them up high in the sky. Other times the people who had lived there loved their houses so much when they moved, that they had literally moved house one day.

Charlie fantasized a lot. In his imagination everything could and would happen. To him dragons were as normal as the street lights every few meters, and passing cars were as common as knights or astronauts. Charlie loved his imaginary world, because everything was possible. He loved to go there as much as he could. Often this had led him to the corner of the class room, when the master didn’t get a response from him when he asked Charlie a question. But Charlie didn’t really mind, because that corner only offered him more opportunities for his dream world: no masters bothering him with stupid questions or math exercises.

At first Charlie tried to share his fantasy world with his friends. Very enthusiastically he would start about dragons and damsels in distress, but without any exception all his friends looked at him weirdly after a few minutes. Because to Charlie, everything was so clear and normal, he forgot to explain most of his world to the others. So all his friends heard were incomprehensible fragments of fantasy. And you know how little boys are. They pick on everything and everyone that is different. Charlie didn’t fit into the standard of football, playing war in the park and talking about cars. He really tried to fit in, but he just couldn’t. Charlie didn’t understand what was so much fun about running around and kicking a ball, or pointing sticks at each other and saying ‘piew piew you’re dead!’ Out of a sort of guilt the other boys still invited him to play ball, but after a while, and after the ball had hit a dreaming Charlie in the head several times, that courtesy stopped. So very soon he was alone. Well, not entirely alone of course, because his fantasy provided him with a lot of company.

While the other boys were playing, Charlie would sit alone at the edge of the school yard or on the concrete wall surrounding the park, his eyes staring into the nothingness of this world, but the everythingness of his own world. In his mind Charlie fights off hordes of enemies from his castle. With heroic courage he saves the villagers and is their hero forever. They throw him cheerfully in the air, and then again. But at the third throw, there is suddenly no one there to catch him. When he gets up from the ground with a painful look on his face, he looks around. The castle is gone; Charlie is standing in the middle of a large plain. It is rather flat, with a few hills. The ground is trembling a little. He looks to where the sounds is coming from, and sees a big dust cloud in the distance, behind a row of hills. The rumbling gets louder and louder. Finally Charlie sees what was behind the hills causing the dust clouds. It is an enormous herd of bisons! Thousands of hoofs creating an impressive rhythm that swells in power every single second. And they are heading straight for him. Charlie starts to run. As fast as his little legs can carry him, he runs away from the bisons. Through the plains, over the hills, past the sparse bushes he runs. There is a little gathering of bushes on a small hill, and Charlie has to run past it. As he passes the last bush, his feet suddenly no longer feel support beneath them. The hill caved in and left a steep sand slide that took Charlie by surprise. He plummets down, rolling over and over. His mouth fills with sand. At the end of the slide is a big black hole. Charlie tries to stop, but he has so much speed that despite his efforts he falls into the hole. The hole seems endless. Charlie falls and falls. But then, out of nowhere, his fall is broken by a bouncing castle. Now he’s bouncing up and down within a big red and blue inflatable castle. Surprised he gets up straight. Now that he is bouncing on his feet, he can look around. The castle appears to be floating in a big ocean. Everywhere outside the plastic walls there is water. And in the water fish are swimming. Big fish, lots of little fish, jellyfish, even a shark slowly swims past. He seems to be winking at Charlie. From the right a big old turtle comes peddling by. He turns his head towards Charlie and says:
            “Charlie, stop dreaming! I’ve been looking all over for you. Diner is ready!”
The turtle sounds a surprising lot like his mother. Charlie rubs his eyes and opens them again. The castle, the turtle and the water are gone. Instead Charlie is back at the edge of the park, with his mother impatiently waiting in front of him.

The next day, Charlie walks all the way to school. Alone of course. When he arrives at the class room he notices something. There is an extra chair and table. At the table, turned on her chair to talk to his class mates, is a young girl. She doesn’t look like any of the girls from his class. Maybe she’s new. He doesn’t pay any more attention to it and finds his way to his own seat. Luckily that hasn’t been moved too much to make room for the new kid. When he gets up from putting down his bag, his eyes meet the loveliest face in the world. It belongs to the new girl. She is so beautiful. Charlie immediately feels warm inside. Her face is perfectly pink, and very smooth. Her nose forms the cute little center of it. Her lips shine a beautiful red. Her long dark brown hair elegantly falls down the side of her face.

The new girl is called Veronica. Her parents moved here from the other side of the country, and she doesn’t know anyone here. But that soon changes. She turns out to be very popular. Everyone loves Veronica. Both the teachers and the children. Charlie wants to meet her too, talk to her. But he is afraid. In his imagination he finds thousands of ways to talk to her, become friends with her, play with her. But in the real world all he does in front of her is say nothing and stare at her.
            “Hello Charlie, what do you want?”
She knows his name! That makes him feel even more uncomfortable. He now not only stares, but also makes weird movements in front of her. That scares Veronica, and she hurriedly turns away to play with some of her new friends. From that moment on Veronica avoids his look as much as she can.

It makes Charlie very sad that he can’t talk to Veronica. Not in real life anyway. In his imagination they have great and exciting adventures together. Charlie escapes to his imagination more and more often. He wanders off alone in the park, while the other boys play football on the school yard after school. A stick soon transforms into a mighty sword, which fights off the tree enemies. The birds aid him, but the squirrels have to be fought too. Charlie is happy in his own world. In this world he has everything under control. And he can always get out or create an entire new world when he wants to. Right now Charlie likes to be a knight, to fight the bad guys. The adventure. The excitement. Everything is great in this world. But then, a noise. It sounds like a twig breaking. Disturbed Charlie looks up. The knights are gone, the trees are just trees again, the birds are singing their happy tune like always. But something made that twig break. Charlie looks around. He sees something bright blue disappearing behind the big oak tree. Carefully he walks over there, trying to make as little sounds as possible. He hears someone breathing behind the tree. He stops for a bit at the other side of the tree to gather courage. Then he jumps around the tree to find…

Veronica. It is his new classmate Veronica behind the big oak tree, dressed in her bright blue winter coat. He is very surprised to see her here. She laughs. That makes him realize why she must be here. She will tell of him to their classmates. And then they will make fun of him very much. That scares him and makes him very sad. In tears Charlie runs away. He sits down at another big oak tree and starts crying. After a while he hears footsteps approaching. He braces himself for the terrible laughter. But no, she says:
“I’m sorry that I scared you Charlie. I was just very curious. Were you playing knights and princesses?”
 Charlie is surprised. He hears concern in her voice. With a hand dirty from the woods he dries his tears and looks up. He sees that same beautiful face from a few weeks ago. Veronica gives him a warm smile.
            “Can I play with you? That is, if you don’t mind of course.”
It turns out that Veronica doesn’t really like to play with the other girls. She thinks they play stupid and childish games. She likes to use her imagination when she plays.
            “Yes Veronica, you can play with me.”
Charlie manages to say with a lot of nerves. She helps him up, and soon Charlie has explained to her who the good guys or the bad guys were.
            “But there is no princess in my world. What to do now?”
He says a little sad. But Veronica knows the answer to that one.
“Then we can just imagine a princess into existence. Just like that. I can be princess Veronica, and then you are the brave knight Charles.”
Together they play. Together they explore each others imagination. Together everything is possible. They play until the sun has to go to bed. They both rush home, but they promise each other that they will meet again after school the very next day. Because their imagination awaits!

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