Toy Soldiers

On familiar suburban streets there was a boy who couldn’t stop crying. He felt sorry for himself, and wanted to apologise to everyone for the horrors of the world. He had so much love, but didn’t understand where it came from. The world was losing colour. It was once so bright. Now everyone looked grey, like empty toy soldiers. Wound up by a distant and fading ambition, they marched back and forth, all looking for the same thing. Each haphazardly exploring the same path that they’d trodden for years, looking as though they knew they’d never find it. They seemed disoriented. These people were successful and respected. There was more to their name than the boy’s, but he had something that they didn’t. He would go out to watch them every morning and every afternoon, each marching on their favoured path. He wondered what was at either end, and why soldiers would turn grey.

He would follow the network of valleys in the bark of a tree, getting lost in their intricacies. It felt timeless. Unfortunately, each-and-every time, this feeling expired. Each-and-every time he was left with a solemn sense of detachment. He’d then start to question what everyone else was doing with their time. He couldn’t help but feel a large part of humanity’s energy was spent and wasted.

Despite this empty feeling, he kept his head up through the monotony, melancholy and futility that seemed to reside everywhere he looked. Through perseverance he came to a somewhat brutal epiphany that this act of looking was itself monotonous, melancholy and futile. Strangely, this gave him hope. He started looking for something unfamiliar; something that broke the rule; a feeling perhaps.

What was so special about a bloody tree?

And why didn’t it marvel anyone else?

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