Light of a child

The boy held the watch in his hand. It was an odd thing to find discarded on the path. Odder still to find it was ticking. He pulled up on the crown. The ticking stopped. All sound stopped. The birds no longer sung in the trees. The wind no longer fluttered the leaves. Silence, yet more than silence. It was an absence of sound, a void, as though all sound had been sucked away. The boy and the watch were all that remained.

Confused, the boy looked up. The trees were still there and the path through the woods. The wind was stilled. The birds seemed to have fled.

He pushed down with his thumb. The ticking began again. The birds began to sing again, the wind resumed its gentle breeze. The boy looked down at the watch, concern etched across his brow.

He dropped the watch. It fell unnaturally slowly as though it longed to linger in the boys grasp. It landed softly in upon a mound of old dead leaves. The boy looked down at it thoughtfully. He bent over and covered it up.

He knew enough about magic, this boy, to leave it be. It was better not to tinker with things like, life and death, time also. There were reasons nature functioned as it did. The boy knew this and he respected it.

He hid the watch for he realized adults did not understand such things. Grown-ups would want the magic, the power. This was their weakness and, in turn, a child’s strength.