Member-only story
The Boy at a Crossroads
I didn’t know what lurked behind those eyes of his.
Once upon a time, a pandemic raged through the populace. No one knew its true origins, but that’s neither here nor there. It happened, it just was, and many people suffered because of its devastation.
But when I went back to work — my first job to reenter the “real world” — masks were considered a mainstay. (For the time being, at least, before everyone stopped caring.) It wasn’t uncommon to feel like you were looking at complete strangers because their faces were half-covered by a swath of fabric.
Then I met some new coworkers, and they were a curiosity unto themselves. I found them fascinating in their youthful optimism, their carefree talks, and the ways they carried themselves. I fancied that I would one day put their likenesses in stories I would write. It was the first time I felt I really had an insight into the psyches of young adults without having a glaze of my own self-loathing attached. I observed them from a distance.
Until I dreamt about one of them. I couldn’t tell you what the dream had been about, but I felt calmer upon waking. It was as if they had walked into my dreamland of their own accord, and I didn’t mind it. In retrospect, it might have been clandestine.
