Children are like ghosts in a world of adults. Lost and invisible against a backdrop of gray.
Rain in a distant sky.
There...without the ‘here’...
Standing in a world where you don’t exist is difficult without legs to stand on, without strength to keep from falling away and being exactly what everyone sees in you. So it’s no wonder when the young fight. No surprise when they lash out at a world which ignores them and fills them with loathing for themselves.
It’s no wonder when assassins seek out heros to emulate...
It’s no surprise when they stand on rooftops and scream that they are still here.
But screaming is weakness and emulation is difficult when weakness is a hero’s opposite. So they live with standing. Standing on weak legs in a world that does not want them. A world that casts them out for what they once were and not what they may yet be.
A world that hurts.
Fathers’ names fall in words unspoken, prayers unbidden to gods not believed in and the rain keeps falling from not so distant skies, on not so distant concrete with the not so unfamiliar scent of a rotting city that has told them they do not belong.
Children stand in hero’s garb with a hero’s name and a child’s fears. Children stand, but only just, and the world crumbles around them to that single step, that last step that will keep the world from ever looking through them again because they will no longer be here to look through.
One step...
The Last step...
“I’m right here...” he whispers, words lost in hoods and falling rain. Words...lost...
“I know,” the voice echos back, strong hands on small shoulders where they had not been in so long.
Too long...
“Grayson...” he manages.
Small words. Lost words. Trembling.
Children are like ghosts in a world of adults.
But sometimes ghosts find a reason to live...