JimSoft Insanitarium -> Insane Stories -> The Boy Who Worried Too Much
By Nomad

It was a warm sunny day. The birds were singing to each other and flying from tree to tree. The butterflies danced among the flowers, and the healthy green grass had a wonderful fresh smell to it. The kids played on the cement, bouncing a ball, or skipping with a rope. They were all laughing and squealing and having a good time. But there was one boy who was alone. He sat alone on a bench in the shadow of the school building. He wasn’t moving, he was looking down at the ground. With all the brightness and sound and movement out in the sunlight, the boy was almost invisible. He wasn’t very happy though. He didn’t know why, but he just wasn’t. He always felt that something was missing, he felt a great hunger, but not for food. There was always this slight pain in the pit of his stomach, and he knew it wasn’t real. It was his mind doing this to him. Something was missing from his life, and he didn’t know what it was, until that very moment.

His thoughts stopped, his heart stopped and he couldn’t move. Right next to him, right under his nose was something beautiful. It was amazing that he hadn’t noticed it before. It was the most wonderful colour he had ever seen, a nice fresh green, and its shape was perfect in every respect. It wasn’t quite round, but it wasn’t quite oval either. It was just perfect, and the boy could not move, because he knew he was witnessing something that was special, and that he was very lucky to be experiencing this. His eyes focused more on it, and everything around him seemed suddenly unimportant. The sounds of the birds and the other children disappeared, and he searched its surface for imperfections, just so that he could dismiss it and get on with his life. But the closer he looked, the more beautiful it became. His blank look changed into a smile, and a tear started to form in the corner of his eye. He didn’t care about anything any more. He didn’t care about the world, he didn’t care about his life, and he no longer cared about the future, or the past, or his family. This was the only thing that mattered now. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and he didn’t care about that either. He wouldn’t have been able to stop them even if he wanted to. But then something happened. He heard something behind him, and then he felt himself being shaken. A distant voice was saying something, and as he tried to focus on what was being said, he lost his concentration and it was over. Suddenly he snapped out of it and looked around. A large crowd of kids had gathered around him, all with worried looks on their faces, and his teacher was shaking him by his shoulders.
“Are you okay little mate? What’s the matter? Why are you crying?”
The boy stared at his teacher with a vacant look, and then slowly formed some words. “I’m…. I’m sorry… Sorry I frightened you all. I’m okay. Really, I’m okay. I just had something in my eye. Sorry.”
“You sure mate?” asked his teacher, “you sure you’re not sick or something?”
“No,” replied the boy. “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. I was just day dreaming.”
“Okay then,” said his teacher. “But remember, if you do want to talk to someone or if you’re having trouble at home or anything, just come straight to me, okay little buddy?” And then the bell went. The crowd dispersed, and the teacher stood for a while, nodded, and then followed the children into the building. The boy didn’t move. He didn’t know what to do. He sat and thought for a while.
“It had been put there for me to see,” he thought. “Maybe I’m supposed to take it. Maybe I’m supposed to share it. Maybe I’m supposed to be afraid of it.”
And then he decided what to do. He felt around on the bench until his fingers found the soft round surface. He moved his hand back and into his pocket, and fished out his handkerchief. It has clean, and hadn’t ever been used before. He then quickly scooped up the grape, wrapped it carefully in his handkerchief and then ran off the school grounds at a full sprint toward his home. His home wasn’t far from the school, and both his parents would be at work. He felt the grape in his hand, and he could feel its warmth. The grape made him happy, because he knew that it was special and that it was perfect. He kept running with the grape in his tight hand. His hand was tight enough to stop the grape from coming loose, but not so tight that the grape would become damaged.

He rounded the corner and the road turned from asphalt to dirt. It was his road. He was getting closer to home. He imagined that something was chasing him; something was trying to stop him from getting home. He imagined that something else wanted to steal the grape away from him. But this was greater than anything he had ever known. It was greater than money and it was greater than happiness. It was perfect. He turned left again into his driveway and up to his little house. He stopped on the porch, and kicked his shoes off. He did this every time before he entered his house; so many times that to not kick off his shoes before entering would seem very very wrong. Before he entered, he stopped and turned around. There wasn’t really anything following him, but it was good to make sure. There weren’t any cars or people around, and all was silent, except for the occasional bird or dog. He slowly pushed the flywire door open, and stuck his head inside. There was no way his parents would have been home, but it was good to just make sure. After pausing for a moment, he walked inside, down the hallway, and into his room. He quietly closed his door behind him until it clicked, and then knelt down beside his bed. He remembered the feeling of happiness and how excited and illuminated he felt, and he wanted to gaze upon it again. He stretched his arm out over his bed, and loosened his grasp. The handkerchief fell to the bed, and then he slowly and carefully unwrapped it. Something was wrong. There didn’t seem to be a bump or weight in the handkerchief. He panicked and started unwrapping it faster and once it was fully unwrapped he was frozen. He couldn’t move. The handkerchief was empty and blank, and there was no trace of the grape, no trace at all. The boy didn’t know what to do. He looked under the handkerchief, he look in his hands, he looked over his bed, but there was no sign of it. He was devastated. “Did I even pick it up?” he said aloud. “I didn’t drop it. Was it even there? Was it real? Why have you done this to me? Why did you show me something so perfect, just so you could take it away again? I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

He stood to his feet, and turned around. His parents were there, in their best church clothes. They were looking down at him proudly, with hideous grins on their faces. He walked passed them and to his hallway. Everyone he knew from school was there, all in their black and BLACK expensive clothing; all looking at him with enormous looks of admiration. As he walked down the hall some of them tried to shake his hand, and others just nodded at him, all with huge terrifying grins. “Maybe they’re not really happy,” he thought. “Maybe they’ve been asked to do that. Maybe they’re being forced to be like this.”
He walked out into the cold, out into the cool blue light of the moon and the stars. All the trees and fences and the roads were painted blue by the moonlight, and he heard laughter from inside his house. They were all laughing. Laughing with each other, and no body cared about him, because he was just that little boy. But then he looked up. The stars were there, and they knew. They knew more than anyone, because the stars had been there forever. And he could feel them. He could feel the stars.


A long time ago in a place far away,
There was a man who liked to play.
He played with darkness; he played with light,
He played with time and width and height.

He created stars and planets and creatures,
And love and beauty and other features;
He created as much as he thought he should,
And felt that what he’d done was good.

But then he discovered grief and sadness,
And greed and hate and pain and madness;
But it won’t be long before they sleep,
It won’t be long before they sleep.


The boy lay in bed, trying to sleep. He closed his eyes and didn’t move. He was so tired, but the noise around him was too loud for him to sleep. It wasn’t actual noise, but it was the noise inside his mind. Throbbing, laughing, crying, ringing. All these echoes of memories were bouncing around inside his head, because they didn’t want him to sleep. And the worst sound of them all was the loud “TICK!...TOCK!...TICK!...TOCK!”, and he didn’t know why he heard this sound, but it was definitely louder than all the others. It was a constant reminder to him that time was still passing, and that maybe time was running out. Maybe everyone was waiting for him. He gave up and sat up in bed. He looked around. His bed, the windowsill, the door, the handkerchief on his bed; they were all covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. It was still dark outside, and there was a thin beam of moonlight shining in through a part in his curtains, which slightly illuminated the empty BLACK handkerchief lying across him. He carefully peeled back his covers, swung his legs to the side, and climbed out of bed. He felt the thick layer of dust under his feet as they hit the floor, and he had to brush all the cobwebs off his head and arms, which had connected him to his bed. He turned back and straightened his bed, and then straightened the handkerchief also. Now that his eyes were open, all the sounds inside his head were gone, and he could concentrate more. He wondered how long he had been lying there awake. He walked across his room toward his door, which was already a few inches open. He reached out his hand for the doorknob, and just as he was about to grab it, a sudden ring pierced the silence. He quickly withdrew his hand and jumped back. It was a loud ring; it was the ring of his phone. He had been startled, and he felt a throbbing at the back of his head, but he calmed himself and went for the doorknob again. As he opened his door, all the spider webs connecting it to its frame broke. He stepped out into the hallway. The phone rang again. It was sitting in its usual position on the small table halfway down the hallway. He walked across the dusty floor toward it, and brushed aside the cobwebs, each one like a barrier across the hallway, trying to stop him from reaching the phone. But he ignored them, and made it to the table. He picked up the phone. One very old voice was at the other end; a voice which was so sad, that hearing even one word would bring the bravest man to his knees.
“It won’t be long before they sleep, it won’t be long before they sleep.”

The boy’s hand went limp and the phone dropped to the floor and shattered. The boy’s whole body also went limp, and he fell to the floor as well. From where he was lying he could see the moon out the window, the cool blue full moon, round and flawless. He could see stars all around the moon, like little children gathered around their mother. But then below the moon some of the stars began to disappear. One by one from the bottom up, the stars vanished as they were engulfed in something enormous. The room became a little darker. The enormous entity that was eating the stars was not entirely dark. He could see the reflection of the moon and the stars in it, and as it became came closer to the moon, more accurate the reflections were. But the reflections shimmered, and the boy realised that this thing wasn’t destroying the stars; it was merely obscuring them. And it was water. A vast wave of water was getting taller and larger, and soon it had completely obscured the moon, and the boy couldn’t see anything. The roar of the wave became louder and louder, and he knew that there was no point trying to run. He felt the floors and the walls shaking and he could hear the ripping and crunching as trees and houses were ripped apart by the powerful wave. The roaring became louder still, and he could feel the wind the wave was generating. And then suddenly it ripped through the boy and his house, as if they were a grain of sand being flicked aside. For a brief moment the boy could feel the cold water all around him, and he could feel himself bumping into dark unknown objects. He couldn’t see anything because of the darkness of the water, but he could feel and hear what was happening. But soon he could no longer do that, because everything went black and silent and numb.

All that was made became unmade,
All that was there was undone.
All because of a great mistake;
And the dreadful pain of one.

And on the bench in the shadow of the school building was a small perfect grape, and the grape sat there effortlessly, choosing to just simply exist.

© 2003 JimSoft