Golden Boy, Who Are You? [bl]

A young boy faced an open window, the morning breeze glided through his hair as he looked to be lost in the sky. A murder of crows swept through the blue vastness in many shapeless forms that the young boy's eyes followed intuitively. He had a thought, what will happen if those birds came to his room? Would they take him to the sky to play? He unwittingly grinned as he reclined on the cream hued bed with one marvel spiderman blanket standing out among the others. It looked worn down and something that was used quite a lot.

Zooming into his space you could see the whiteness and dull shades of a hospital. The young boy wore a white gown and his hair and eyes stood out like bright suns in the plain shades around him, he looked like the only living thing inside which is ironic considering he was the only thing actually dying.

The moment of sereness was broken when the door slid open sharply.

"Patient 7 are you ready for the surgery?" A nurse interrupted.

The young boy's face turned bleak as his heart shimmered in his chest, his stupid weak heart.

"Where are mommy and daddy? They said they would be coming before I go," his voice contained a slight trimmer as he felt his world start to sink. His parents always came before surgeries and shots to ease his worries. Without their wish for luck, it just didn't feel right.

"I'm terribly sorry they're stuck in traffic right now, your surgeries at nine and they won't be here until around ten. Don't worry they'll be here when you wake up."

The boy said nothing for a while but choked a sob as he bit his lip his eyes almost spilling a wall of gathered-up tears that he tried hard to hold back. The nurse looked on sympathetically as she stood and waited for the boy to calm down.

"Don't worry your chances of survival are much more than the last one." If those words were meant to comfort the elementary schooler then they weren't working. Eventually, the child sniffed back tears hiccupping every few seconds as he walked side by side with the nurse to the room where he would get sleepy.

When the mask that made him sleepy was held to his nose and mouth he thought of the murder of crows, if he sees them again will they let him fly as they do?

-

His parents insisted on him going to church with them every Sunday. It was a habit he was used to and gladly welcomed, he would rather be anywhere than the hospital's walls. He liked the community and had many female elders he called grandma. They gave him sweets and praised him, they gave him the love that warmed his weak heart second to his parent's love of course. Nothing could ever beat familial comfort.

Despite the fact that he felt an odd sense of suffocation with being in the church, watching the children his age play, and overall just listening to the preacher, he didn't fit in that well. He was practically raised in the church and hospital and never could go to school and learned privately within the church, so a lot he learned was about God. He wrote essays about God, poetry about God, did presentations about God, reading studies about God, practically everything had to be centered around the bible.

"Greet them, sweetheart," his mom whispered with a forced smile at the elders in front of them. He gladly did so shaking their hands and getting a couple of hugs in return while his parents went to sit down on the rows of seats.

The middle schooler knew that sometimes it wasn't safe for him to be out of the hospital, today was one of those days. But his parents were very Christian and thought missing one day of church would make him go to hell or die faster. With his whole life centered around Christianity, it would be weird for him not to believe in such things but luckily he was exposed to other forms of religion and non-religious people in the hospital.

He felt somewhat guilty for not believing in God.

He would never tell his parents his thoughts as he sat in between their forms. The preacher begins his plea. He found he really hated how loud they were.

-

They hadn't come for his surgery again.

When he woke up they still weren't there.

The high schooler was used to it by now, his parents somehow always seemed to be stuck in traffic every surgery he had. He took shots like popping pomegranate seed into your mouth and got surgeries done almost as many times as he felt the need to flea church every Sunday. He looked over almost sickly to his bed which had many blankets with movie designs on it, all of these came from holidays and birthday gifts. He wondered if they'd ever bring him something other than a blanket for such occasions.

The boy sighed looking dreary as he cracked the window open to let some air circulate through the room, he felt a slight quake of his mentality breaking. Some pain from the earlier surgery made it somewhat hard to breathe.

When he heard the door slide open sharply he paused at the window seal.

"Oh, honey! Baby what are you doing at the window didn't you have your surgery why are you standing!?" His mom's worried steps ushered him back to the bed, his dad trailing behind her like a puppy. The boy sat down as she asked but didn't say anything, his mother looked confused at her son who wouldn't make eye contact with any of them.

"What is it, honey? Are you feeling alright?"

The boy jerked up suddenly feeling cold shivers rack his body as his mind clouded with teenager madness. He wasn't supposed to feel angry, in fact, he was sad, but he just didn't know how to express any of it and just wanted to yell it out.

"No, I'm not alright!" He breathed as he began, his voice cracking in emotion.

"I-I hate it! The hospital makes me nauseous and you guys never seem to be here anymore. I know the traffic thing is an excuse! I'm tired of seeing friends I've made in the hospital go into the white doors and never come out, I'm sick of being treated like glass. When we go to church I look at the old people and know I'll never get to be a wrinkled old person who gets to tell stories of their life's adventures! I hate when I hear my chances of living before every surgery and feel depressed every time I'm praised for surpassing my expected death day!"

He spilled out all his thoughts all the while choking on sobs and tearing at his hair as he leaned into himself, he would rather live an exciting life for a few years than live in a hospital like a sitting duck until his clock stops working. He bottled all these things in and he just felt like everything was suddenly a waste. These surgeries wouldn't work, he would spend the rest of his life waiting for a heart transplant and it would never happen.

He was being obedient and waiting to make his parents happy.

But he was going insane doing so.

The air of the hospital constantly made him sick, his friends constantly died, and he was surrounded by negativity and never had time to vent his thoughts.

His parents stood shocked at their son's outburst finding it hard to believe he could even talk so much, he was always happy around them, and suddenly seeing this vulnerable side of their son confused them. They had given him presents every holiday, seen him every chance they got, took him to church, so how did he get depressed?

The emotionally unwell child looked at his parents trying to see their thoughts and what he found didn't help him at all. Confused and somewhat horrified expressions. Tears spilled over his eyes as they became bleary, he felt humiliated at his upheaval and sucked in a breath yelling at his parents to get out.

When they were gone he sobbed onto the floor feeling lost and alone. Tucking his head in between his legs he wondered why he was still alive when the world so desperately rejected him.

He leaned against the side of his bed on the floor as sudden shrieks filled the sky outside. He looked up only to see a shapeless black swarm of crows moving like fluid through the sky. His eyes felt puffy as his heart stung with each beat, he couldn't breathe and yet all he did was continue to look at the crows. If he became an angel would he get to fly with them?

His heart tightened once again and he wondered for the first time if he was dying.

Trying to take a deep inhaled breath he only got a jab of pain and knew for sure something was wrong.

He was dying.

With the idea spinning in his brain he scrunched up the fabric of his shirt with his hand precisely where his heart was and looked wide eyed at the sky. He was frightened, he would not like to kick the bucket so early. Even if he was practically prepared for this since birth and had many death experiences he felt this one was different and he would die for sure. Could it have been the surgery? Talking too much? Spilling too much? Or was his time extended too long to the point of exhausting his stay on Earth? He had cheated death for many years, his expected demised death was supposed to happen in middle school.

A warm substance trickled down his mouth and dribbled onto the white interior of the hospital floor. Suddenly the boy as splendid as the sun contrasting with the room wasn't so bright anymore and seemed dull compared to the glowing red blood. Like a tease or warning of his soon to be death, he endured in silence.

His eyes held a will to live yet his heart rejected.

He would rather die on the lush green grass outside and smelled the fresh air rather than the hospital's stale overly chemicaled air.

With one last breath of wishes, he died on the hospital floor...

The golden eyes didn't shed any light anymore and a lifeless expression accompanied. A crow that had broken off from the murder watched the treasure that lost its shine and felt fury.