This choice: Eric, a shy and reserved 8 year old boy • Go Back...Chapter #4Eric, a shy and reserved 8 year old boy by: Kilbil   It was a beautiful Sunday morning. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming, and children were arguing with their mothers about chores, vegetables, and other things children generally don't want to do. One of those children was arguing with his mother right now, as Eric did his absolute best to try convincing his mother of every possible reason why he should absolutely, positively not go to Maylah Park. As he delicately had his mother on the pinprick of his index finger, gently sitting down on a small mountain range that neatly fit his legs between the valleys, Eric tried every trick in the book, from faking injuries to playing puppy dog eyes. Right now, he was in the middle of begging as if his very life depended on it (technically, for many others, it did, but no one really paid any mind to that).
"But mama, I don't wanna go! I shouldn't go at all!"
"Eric, this is final! I am not going to have you here loafing around the entire summer when you could be making friends! Get out of your shell a little bit, none of the kids will bite!"
"That's not why I don't wanna go..."
Once more, Eric was futilely trying to explain to mama that no, he didn't want to meet anyone, he didn't comfortable talking with anyone, and the last thing that he wanted was to have to go to somebody with every last bit of himself. She didn't know how lucky she had it, being able to live all alone away from any other the people in a nice two-story house on top of his head, long lost in a forest of hairs that were as tall as oak trees.
Still, no matter how much he protested, Eric knew it was futile. His mother had a head of steel and nerves of titanium. Whatever she decided had to be done will be done. There was nothing he could do at this point. He had to go to the Summer Festival. Meaning that he needed to have a partner and participate in all the events and everythiiiing, no matter how little sense it made for someone bigger than a mountain range to be doing this kind of stuff with normal-sized kids! Maybe it wouldn't be bad; he had been feeling pretty lonely lately and wished he could have someone more his size to talk to. Since one hadn't shown up and probably never would, maybe now was a good time to take his chances with the neighborhood kids, regardless of whether or not he could even see them. But nah, there was no way this would work out in the end; the well was well and truly poisoned between him and the other kids, and the last thing Eric needed was to make things worse with his presence.
All he would have to do was be invisible and not interact with anymore, right? But that was impossible for him. No matter where he went, someone would always be able to see him in the horizon, whether they were in Utica, New York or Portland, Maine. He already knew that practically everyone in the tri-state already heard every word of his argument, and that they thus knew he was coming to Maylah Park, regardless of how relevant such info was to them, so he might as well make the journey.
Wasting no time, Eric shifted his weight around in the mountain range, using two of the larger mountains as handholds as he slowly lifted himself up to his full height, grimacing as his head once again got a face-full of dense clouds that he had to wave away just to be able to see anything that was before him. He then slowly and carefully placed one foot forward towards the neighborhood, positioning his bare feet towards the area with the smallest population from his memory. Waiting a few minutes for any unfortunate souls to retreat from the encroaching shadow, he firmly placed his foot down right next to Maylah Park, decimating several blocks worth of houses and causing minor dust storms to form around his foot. In a single stride, Eric had arrived. Eric didn't even wanna know what his classmates saw when he had his foot practically hovering over them, but he had very good eyesight. He could see how little they wanted him around and how much they hated it when he was around. He wasn't surprised - Eirc would hate having himself around if he was them.
A pinkie toe far bigger than the neighborhood, let alone the entire school, was all anyone at the Summer Festival could see now. He made sure to take care of his hygiene, so the underside should be relatively spotless this time, free of crushed building debris and mangled cars. If it were up to him, that would be the end of his involvement, but adults were insistent that everyone had to be included and junk, so he had to participate in the events. Since that was the case, he would have to lean down as close as possible in order to pick one out, meaning he would have to clear out even more of the surrounding area just to even be able to interact properly with anyone! All he wanted was to just view the sunset and play around with the clouds that surrounded him, making dumb shapes with them. Maybe he could be a cloud artist if he really put in the effort, or maybe a landscape artist!
He doubted there would be anyone who would want to be his partner anyway. They probably knew someone that they lost because of him, now nothing more than a stain and a distant memory. Adults never seemed to listen to him, though, so here he was, once again having to crawl on all fours to even begin having a chance of maybe hearing the commotion below, no doubt plowing away yet more family homes and apartments just so some kid - maybe Jeremy - could have the privilege of participating in a three-legged race with him.
This is why he didn't wanna go out much... now he was gonna have to find a way to save the day from himself, but how?   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
<<-- Previous · Outline  · Recent Additions © Copyright 2024 Kilbil (UN: lllop at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
Kilbil has granted Writing.Com, its affiliates and syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work within this interactive story. Poster accepts all responsibility, legal and otherwise, for the content uploaded, submitted to and posted on Writing.Com. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author