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Before the Sun broke through its seventh rise, two sinners peeled off from their blankets. They dressed in the mantle adjacent to the Goods, wrapped themselves in their first daily prayer, and giggled a faint promise of remembrance. That was all Brandon deducted through his prayer beads, counting one message to another, matching up his breaths with the tick of the clock—soon, they'd pay visit to the Outside.
The wooden floors creaked under their weight; one frame as two beings held each other, escaping the light into the darkest nights—of which produced by sin, not any absence of the Sun. As wood turned to asphalt, and asphalt to soil, to a path the boy relied only on his wits. No, the much knowledgeable guide with him had traced the easiest way long before they went. The boy thought he understood. After all, he should be second in all decisions—to pick up his spoon, and to repeat sermons, as it was the foundation for every life. Action and inaction.
It's cold! Unbelievably so! Without the Sun's rays, the boy shivered in his coat. "Are we there yet?" Little Brandon chirped; one hand intertwined with his mother's palm, two feet skipping and engraving pitter-patters on dew-coated grass.
His mother laughed as she hoisted him up to her hips—for a child his age, Brandon had grown far too old to enjoy the cradle of a parent's warmth, but he only knew of the cushioned softness against his bony body; a break from the aches scraping his inner core. In comparison to Brandon, his mother excelled in strength, able to carry a boy the height of her shoulders with a smile. "Careful, Brandon," she said, "We don't want you to fall."
They edged closer to a path which had yet to be worn out by man. Green sprawled from its once-asphalt flooring, hints of ants and spiders clawing its nest next to the rusted brown fence. The tall gates creaked open when Brandon pushed with all his might. Outside, weeping figs stretched upon the sky and with them created what Brandon envisioned of the trees all Good promised in clouds—rotten barks fragrant through their sin of age, faux twilight through the gaps of natural gloom.
"Look! Look at that."
I can't wait to tell everyone about this, Brandon thought, and thought harder, especially him.
"Go on," his mother urged. The soles of his sandals crunched the still-solid mud, covered in a thousand tiny specks of make-belief, twenty-two light reflections on that patch alone! How cool was that!
Swift. Lightning. Brandon sped through the only straight pathway, giggling, "Catch me! Catch me!" So long as he could feel the wind carry his mantle and his burdens alongside him, Brandon could no longer feel them. Free as a gazelle. Able to trek beyond humanly sorrows, shimmering with hope for the years to come.
Almost as bright as the statues infront of him. Barren graying of stone—marble, or maybe concrete—an iridescent yellow bouncing off their skin. Works of man of which know not of cloth nor modesty, their silhouettes no less thinner than their own naked bodies, flaunting twists and bends of artistry beyond what Brandon prophecized. "Oh," he gasped, "Woah."
When their light shined towards his face, blooming his rounded features, the click of a gun all too familiar rang.