#POBE: Take this and run with it

Take this and run with it

Take this and run with it, is what he had said to the boy. Well, something like that. He just wanted to get the boy out of the house so he pointed at the thing and said what he said and the boy took it and ran out the door. It wasn’t meant to be a real inspiring thing or anything. He didn’t even expect the boy to make it as far as he did, the thing was pretty damn heavy after all, but the boy plucked it off of the floor without even a grimace, like he had actually been inspired by the little speech-thing he’d been given and was now imbued with some sort of power, like a self-belief that had been stirring, occasionally finding its way to the surface to poke its nose out of the water and take in short breaths of confidence, had now fully emerged, the water gone, and with the pool drained, its flesh dried and grew warm in the sun. He watched the boy run out of the cul-de-sac, thing held over his head like a totem. A young girl on her stoop, also watching the boy run with the thing, picked up a thing from her porch and started to run after the boy. Another child with another thing joined. And another, until at least twenty children with twenty different things were running down the street towards an intersection where the traffic stopped on a green to let them pass, a few of their back doors springing open and children with things held over their heads spilled out into the street, running towards the others. At this distance he could no longer make out the boy, but he could still see what he carried, the thing now more silhouette than solid, a memory pushing into the horizon.