Little Boy Lost

by Matt Kendrick

lives in a lighthouse a hundred leagues from the sea. The house is a tower. The tower is still finding its feet. It was pulled down. It was put up. The waves here are silent. They are green. They are billowing fields that silently weep. Little boy lost never goes in those fields. His world is the house. The house is a harbour. He saw a real harbour once. He saw the batter of combers. He heard the howling of wind. He scrubbed the teary brine of the ocean from his innocent cheeks. The oceans are rising. The ravenous tide has swallowed the beach. The seaside is danger. The lighthouse is safe. The boy is safe. His bones are safe. His mind is safe. His toys are an anchor. His books are a harbour. There are worlds within those books. There are smiling wizards. There are magical nannies. There are fairytale castles where the boy finds refuge when sadness crabs towards him in the clefts of the night. He sleeps in a bunkbed. He wants to be higher than the eagles, higher than the fickle moon in the villainous black. The sea is grumbling. It is breakers and billows, shivers and surf. The boy sucks his thumb. In his stories, the sea is a lake is a puddle is a single drop of water on a horse chestnut leaf. It is a thousand leagues behind him. He is a hermit. He is a robot. He is a tin woodman in a hot air balloon soaring through the clouds. The clouds are mint-chocolate ice cream. He wants to go higher. Even in the balloon in the book in the lighthouse in the hills, he can still hear the taunting echo of the unremitting tide, the jeering of gulls, the scuttling of crabs. The windows are boarded over. Before bedtime, he moves his bunkbed to the attic where his books are a fortress and his toys are the knights. The attic is a harbour. It is a refuge of scatter cushions and blankets and a teddy bear called Charlie with a peppercorn patch above his unbeating heart. He unravels a story. Pinocchio is a boy is a puppet is a log is an oak tree is a sapling is an acorn. The acorn is in the protective embrace of the unthinking earth. The earth is a harbour. The earth is a vacuum. The earth is no moisture, no fire, no acid, no sunshine, no salt. It is no bruises, no scraped knees. It is no bee stings, no bullies, no acne, no embarrassment of pubic hair. It is no lonely lunchbreaks. It is no awkward handshakes, no drunken nightclubs. It is no heartache, no toothache, no backache, no aging. It is no ocean. It is just the numb unravelling of a little boy lost.

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Matt Kendrick is a writer, editor and teacher based in the East Midlands, UK. His work has been featured in various journals and anthologies including Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, Craft Literary, and the Wigleaf Top 50. He lives with a chronic illness he calls Trevor and has an unhealthy addiction to playing around with words. He is currently working on a novel that is a blend of marvellous realism and humorous pastiche.