As the clouds drifted from before the sun, half of the shadows covering the small boy’s face vanished, leaving behind a soft version of the balcony across his brow. He sat in the doorway to the apartment, with his feet outside, watching the small world of strangers play on the ground five stories below. He rested his head on his hands, which in turn were propped by his elbows on his knees. His eyes moved slowly to his feet, and then his attention was distracted by the swift arrival and disappearance of a hummingbird. The boy was not sure he had seen anything at all, but he remembered the sound, the soft thumping of repetitious wings and silent chirps of disappointment in finding no flowers or birdfeeders to enjoy.
The boy glanced inside. It was dark. Somewhere within his mother was sleeping, while his father read a book at the lamp in the living room. He sat in a big chair, which the boy was only occasionally allowed to sit in. Someday he would be big enough to sit there. Someday he would be big enough to do a great many things. But not now. He could not climb on the couch. He could not run in the house. He could not go outside, even though the door was open and the breeze felt good. That is why he sat there, staring at the forbidden, clutching his lion.
The stuffed beast was soft and always listened to him. It was always his friend and would never be mean or blame him for anything. Not like his sister, or his father or mother. They yelled at him sometimes and did not always want to play. But the lion; he was always willing to run about the world of imagination or simply to be cuddled, or to comfort the boy when he was scared or felt the evil eyes of blame on his shoulders. He was there when people said things the boy did not understand, or when his father was angry. The lion was also there when the boy was angry; to be kicked, admonished and apologized to. The boy always felt bad when he hurt the lion and begged forgiveness from his friend. The lion always forgave. He was unconditional love; a friend who would never complain, even as the boy grew older and slowly forgot the beast, locking him in box after box until, as an old man, he rediscovered his old friend; his imagination; his innocence; his self love; and clutched the lion to his breast and wondered, what if he had always held his friend so close? What if he had remained so blissfully ignorant of the world and run innocently through life with his own pride and marveled always at the way rays of light moved across his arms or how a butterfly sounds when it laughs?
But what-ifs are pointless. They do not change memories, only make them harder to forget. It does not alter the man he has been. So he sets the lion on the mantle and looks on it only occasionally with regret; a strange feeling at times that he never grew up; that he was still just a child and everything since had just been a daydream. And the small boy shudders. He clutches his lion tight and steps onto the balcony to get a better view. He knows his father’s voice will soon call him back in, but just for a while, he wants to be free.
