Seize the boy!

But he was too fast. Fast as lightning, he was out the kitchen window—his mother’s fingers clutching thin air—his body plunging into the tall green grass. The roused neighbours opened their windows at the commotion and saw only a shape in the veldt scurrying off towards the rising sun, leaving in its wake a trail of twinkling fireflies. They shouted at him, but he sped all the more.

The dewy stalks slapped against him and washed his face, his hands, and his legs. He bit them and gulped down the fresh ambrosia. The ground fell beneath his steps, the sky dipped upon his leaps. The wind was in his hair, and he was in the wind. Summer. It was a glorious summer. It was eternal summer, and he was going to run forever. And nobody was going to catch him.

On the border of the field, in an old, ramshackled hut, lived an ancient, eldritch witch. She was woken up by the rustle in the field, and when she looked out, she saw the boy’s head bobbing up and down the tips of the stalks, his fists punching up as if he’d knock out the stars. And she hated him.

“I will catch the boy,” she said in her stygian heart. “And I will cook him, make a soup out of him, and suck the soft marrow from his bones.”

She put on her shoes on her backward feet and went running after him. A hideous cackle escaped her boiled lips. At that sound, the birds fell from the sky, the mice died in their burrows, and the flowers shrivelled up in their beds. The boy looked back and saw her, her claw-like jaundiced hand thrusted out at him, her fingers spread out like a spider’s web. The boy snorted.

They had a tremendous chase. The witch chased the boy out of the field and into the forest. Fast as lightning, the boy jumped over the ageless roots of the trees while the witch hopped from one bronze branch to the next. He skipped over the stepping stones in the river while she crossed the effluent in a single bound. Up the hills they went from there; up, up, up. Like a sprightly ram, the boy mounted the crags, and like a famished leopard, the witch bolted after him. Soon, she closed the distance. Her knotted fingers were brushing against his pennon hair. In a moment, she would yank him and pin him.

But the ground gave way. Suddenly, they were running downhill. Her feet tripped over the change. She smashed her hooked nose upon the slope, and then she started to roll; roll, roll, roll, down the terrain. The boy laughed, running behind the screaming, tumbling witch. He kicked her hard and made her roll even more. She rolled, and rolled, and rolled until she rolled over the cliff and fell into the sea. Triumphant, the boy danced and sang a ridiculous ballad about her. She had thought she could catch him. But she couldn’t. None could catch him. None!

He saw them come down the hills with the dogs at their heels. The old ones with their old eyes, their old hair, and their old frowns. They who were old forever. The boy snorted. They sicced the dogs on him, and another chase commenced. The canine pack hunted him down the green valley. One of them got oh so very close, his salivating maw intent on chomping down upon any limb it could grab, but the boy grabbed first. With one hand, he hooked its throat, and quick as lightning, he sprang upon the hound, pulling its ears and making it yelp, and buck, and gallop. The rest looked on slack-jawed. Nobody had done this before. They gave up the chase and howled bitterly. The old ones stamped their feet into a dust smoke.

His mount collapsed at the edge of a meadow of tall and proud sunflowers. The sun was now at the zenith of the sky, and the golden sentinels were saluting the golden face. The boy dismounted the panting dog and was about to run off when he heard a humming. It stopped him in his stride. It was soft as moonlight, melodic as midnight, beguiling as a nightingale, and it made strange emotions well up in him, the likes of which he had never felt before. Even the sunflowers ceased their obeisance towards the sun and transferred their trance-like gaze towards the source of the music. It was coming from the heart of the meadow, and when the boy reached the centre, he found a small glade, and in that glade a rock, and upon that rock the singer: a girl.

She stopped singing when she saw him. She waved at him. He returned it slowly.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello,” he said.

“Did you like my singing? Was it nice?”

“...Yes.”

“So you like me.”

The boy felt his face turn hot. “What?”

“You like me.”

The boy couldn’t form an answer. Quick as lightning, he turned tail and was outside the meadow and back in the valley. But he still heard her humming, and when he looked back, he saw her follow him, walking leisurely. The sun was sinking.

Up, up, up the mountain he went, sweat beading his forehead, but her mellifluent voice he could not escape. He looked back. She was still coming. Now and then, she would stop to look at the sky or a little weed, and then continue, waving at him.

He ran. He ran all over the world. He crossed foaming rivers, lusty forests, boundless countries. He swam through murky lakes and briny seas—he charted bottomless oceans. He mastered deserts and tundra, withstood snow and hail, and survived damp jungles and parched steppes. Still, he could not escape her. Her sweet voice pursued him all over the world. Until finally, he came back to the field with the stalks all dry and stood gaping at the girl in front of him.

“How did you get here before me?” he asked, trying to catch his breath in his wearied lungs.

“Silly,” she said. “I stood here, waiting. You are the one who ran around the entire world. And now you are back where you started.”

The boy had no more legs under him. The red-faced sun was touching the horizon. “It’s not fair,” he said.

“You can’t always keep running.”

“Yes, I can!”

“No, you can’t.”

And he knew she was right. He hated that she was right. He loved that she was right. She stepped in front of him.

“I am still a boy.”

“And you always will be.”

She kissed him. The sun fell under the world, and all was night. Then, he woke up. Rosy dawn was peeking through a gap in the curtains.

“Did you have a nightmare?” his wife asked sleepily beside him. “You jolted.”

“Not a nightmare, but a dream,” the man said.

“What did you dream?”

“You kissed me.”

“Was it nice?” she asked playfully.

“...Yes.”

She snuggled closer to him. He put his hand on the curve of her stomach and closed his eyes. He felt him run.