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— 〆 for a childhood story
The stream out back never froze during the winter. It was small, and everything in and around it was helpless: the tiny minnows with the transparent skin, and the wriggling things under the rocks, and the mosses and lichens that he didn’t even know were living creatures until years and years later. It was a good thing that the stream didn’t freeze, or all of those small helpless lives would just be gone, wouldn’t they?
Homework was easy; a thinning list of logical conundrums and a few reading reports he would always (convincingly) fake. There were more interesting things to be doing. There were puddles to reach into and rocks to look under and small sweet lovely fascinating creatures to hold in one’s hands and touch and stare at. He realized, long after, that it may not have been the best way to show affection for these hapless creatures, given the oil on human hands—but who, as a child, knew any better? He would come home with jars full of caterpillars and scratched hands and skirts and jeans caked in thick, flaking layers of mud. He would sparkle and beam and ask his teachers for advice on how best to take care of his newfound insectoid companions. He would listen with a combination of dismay and impatience as his mother detailed his offenses, soaking his tangled hair in warm water and brushing it out to painfully long and soft and gently curled, reminding him that she could only replace so many clothes and that if he kept ruining them, he would be out of clothes entirely soon enough—
It never came to that, of course, but one had to wonder whether there was a reason the flower-patterned bluejeans and heart emblem t-shirts always took the heaviest beatings.