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pie in the sky
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it was, truly, a beautiful day.
eren gazed off, out of the windowpane, as his father hit him, calling him a diversity of titles. sharp points of pain that once felt like a thousand bees had stung him at once now felt like harsh blows of wind aiming to knock him over, slowly evolving into soft breezes. his tears were a soft mist that rained down where he stood, his cries nothing more than nature playing its melody.
eren convinced himself that he was outside, and not trapped in with his father, chasing butterflies and sniffing flowers with a friend. the lullaby increased in volume, but eren kept his eyes shut; he wanted to believe, just for this moment, that he was in the field beyond the woods.
when eren was pushed to the floor and kicked until he coughed up blood, eren did not find himself in this hand-me-down home. he smiled as he felt the prickling grass brush against his back as if it was not broken glass. he snuggled close to the ground, feeling the sun's heat beat against him.
the sun seemed to walk away, leaving nothing but the fading voices of the mockingbirds and cicadas. eren got up and bandaged himself; a price he must pay for going to the field beyond the woods.
eren did not like his reality, to the point of escaping it whenever it drew too near. though, one day, he knew that he would no longer settle for his imagination, as prominent as it was.
but, for the first day of dreaming of the field beyond the woods, a reality that eren would never touch, he would embrace his imagination, though it was just a fictional picture of his head.
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a fantasy of freedom
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when eren entered his imagination, he was not sitting in the field as he would have hoped. instead, he was hiding behind a bush, watching a little boy with long blond hair spin around in the field.
the boy had stopped spinning for one minute and looked at eren's bush, in which eren was gazing so intently. he had never seen such freedom before! to be so close to it, oh, it frightened him.
with one sigh, the boy stopped glancing at the other child behind the bush and instead tried to show him how free he felt on in the meadow. he skipped, hopping over blooming flowers and squealing when he fell. he laughed, all by himself, and danced some more.
eren longed for that feeling. even if they were so close to it, he couldn't bring himself out that bush — he couldn't bring himself to freedom. reality dug its nails into eren's back, reality hit eren, reality kicked eren on the floor to the point of bleeding. reality treated eren like he was nothing, and yet, he didn't think he was ready to leave reality all on his own yet.
the boy stopped playing after a while. they huffed, and put their arms over their chest. they were clearly frustrated, but at who? it was only them and eren in the field.
they started to walk towards eren. freedom was coming so close, beaming brighter than eren could've ever imagined–
the boy stuck his hand out to eren, smiling.
"do you want to play with me?"
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painful propinquity
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dreams only feel like a few seconds. so why is it, whenever eren has one, it seems to stem over so many hours?
eren hadn't seen outside ever since school ended for the summer. it's the sole reason why he hates summer so much. he didn't have any method of communication, any form of connection with the outside. instead, he had his father, who loved to smash anything of eren's whenever he felt especially angry.
today was one of those days. eren had slept for so long that he had forgotten to do the dishes, for the second day in a row. when he hurried to the kitchen and tried his best to scrub away at the grime, but found he was too late when he heard the jingle of a key, he wailed, dread and fear flooding his sink of a stomach.
"again? again?" he yelled, grabbing eren by his hair and pulling him up. it stung so badly, eren wasn't able to travel to the field beyond the woods. the sun could never match the amount of force his father put him against.
"i'm sorry," eren cried.
"sorry doesn't fix shit!"
and as his father released his hold on his hair and replaced it on his neck, eren choked and sputtered, thrashing in ways he couldn't control. his imagination wouldn't come to him now. the blonde boy walked out of his mind while eren hacked and screamed.
"i told you, that by the time i got home, these dishes should be done. have you not learned your fucking lesson yet?"
when eren found that his reality was slipping, when his eyes truly started to close, he was slammed on the rough wooden table, panting and hyperventilating.
he was too close to freedom. maybe that's why it hurt so bad.
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subtle anonymity
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it was a replay of the same dream.
eren was behind the bush, again, as the boy swung around carelessly. it was like they were separated by two different universes no matter how much eren reached out. as long as eren hid behind a shrub, he would be asymptotic to the one person he wanted to know most.
before the kid had even been able to stick out their hand, eren stood up and rushed over. the boy turned around.
eren wanted to speak. he wanted to say so many things, but it felt like he was only there to watch and blindly follow. if he spoke, well, he'd only awake himself out of this illusion. it was how it always worked because eren was still alive, and the boy in the field was not.
in this dream, he looked different. this time, he had a flower crown composed of the many beauties that surrounded him, and ruffled, patchy black clothing that hung loosely off his shoulders. so much alike eren.
"you want to play?"
eren nodded. he smiled, and brought their hands together, singing nursery rhymes and laughing. eren had never been more in bliss before. they counted the frogs hopping along in the shade, tiptoed past the seagulls to not frighten them, and even named a kitten that walked out of the trees, meowing with their tail raised high.
and when he woke up, after a careless attempt to ask his title, eren wept.
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an ode to the innocent art of adolescence
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when eren exited his room, he noticed that his father was nowhere to be seen. it had to be at least noon now, and he loved to rush home to inspect the house. when eren had finished the housework without hearing his tantrums, he sighed in relief.
giving the counters one last scrub, eren took an extended glance at the side door and quickly whipped back, cursing himself for thinking such a thing.
eren wasn't clueless. he knew how to unlock a door, how to exit a home. he could so easily step out with the shabby slippers he was wearing to the outdoors, and never return. after all, he didn't need much or have much. he knew his school friends, mikasa's, address by heart, for no particular reason.
every summer, thoughts of escaping his reality always seemed to float to the forefront of his mind, coming more prominent than the last. now, as eren was drifting away from the safety and naïveté of childhood, nothing was more unbearable than resisting the door that led to extrication, more devastating than leaving the dancing boy of freedom.
he inched toward it, not even the scaring thoughts of what eren might do, of what his father might do stopping him.
eren's father is a nameless man in a false reality. who was eren to ever care about false realities and nameless boys?
he turned the lock left, and now all that was separating him from the outside was a screen door. people were walking on the pavement, cars pulling into their respective driveways as others flew by. eren saw no sign of a white truck, so he unlocked the screen door, and walked outside.
the air was much colder than he expected. it was not as blistering hot as it had been in his dream, more alike autumn weather than anything. eren sighed. it seems that the reality of summer, too, was not sufficient for him.
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the ballad of a firefly
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eren looked forward to seeing the boy now. tonight, when he had fallen asleep, he woke up to see that in his dream it was also nighttime. the nameless boy was sleeping on a pile of leaves, curled up tighter than a cat. eren tapped his arm, trying to wake him.
when he awoke, the boy stared at eren for a second too long, then whispered, "not yet."
eren wasn't sure what that meant. did he want to go back to sleep? was it not time for him to wake up?
on the contrary, the boy stood up and stretched, then turned to eren.
"let's follow the fireflies."
he pointed upward, where one distant light flickered and flew around. eren was astonished, intrigued! he hadn't ever been out late to ever see one before. he had only seen videos, pictures, and faraway viewings from his window of a firefly. he chased it with all his might, seemingly never running out of breath as he threaded through the trees, stumbling over rocks.
the boy traveled shortly behind eren, walking with a patience eren could never have. he flicked a hair out of his face when eren yelped, stubbing his toe on the bark.
"let's hurry, it's getting away," he said, walking faster after it, dodging swaying leaves as he passed. why was he so graceful in this wild growth? how long had he lived here? eren had many questions for him, but he was too scared to talk.
finally, the boy stopped running and stepped behind one tree to see the bug fly. there was a wide clearing at the heart of the forest, in which a wide shimmering river had stretched over, thin enough for eren to jump over, but wider than anything he could ever compare it to. the firefly had begun to fly across, and eren wasn't going to chase it to the other land. the boy hadn't moved and didn't seem like he was going to move any time soon.
a second firefly flew from west of the river, soaring to the first. two lights shone brightly against each other and swirled around each other as the crickets chirped idly in the background.
this was the first time eren had ever seen nature's dance before. and, by all means, eren thought it was worth waking up.
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awakening from an unrealizable dream
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eren was still alone in the house. he searched all over, even in rooms that were strictly forbidden from his touch, but he could not find any other form of life. the rooms were still neat, not being touched ever since eren had wiped them down yesterday.
he went back to his room and plopped on the bed. he curled underneath the cover just as the boy had done, in hopes of being able to go back.
he was not sleepy enough to cut his mind off just yet. he tossed and twirled, trying to find a comfortable spot to eventually lure himself to unconsciousness. he eventually sighed and got up, realizing that he was too old and too tall to buckle up in a ball comfortably. the boy seemed to be around his age, just a few centimeters under eren, so why was it that he could rest so peacefully?
getting up and going to the kitchen, he started to think about what was in the refrigerator, and what he could cook quickly.
but as he opened up the refrigerator, he couldn't help glancing over and looking at the door.
he forgot to lock it.
there was no way around it now. he has to lock the door, or his father will come home to an unlatched door. his father will know that he did not leave the house without securing the door, and ask eren. then he'll start to suspect that eren went outside.
eren had to lock that door.
so he crept down the stairs as if three thousand people were silently waiting for him to make a noise, and went to turn the lock of the screen door.
the pressuring urge to open the door ran miles in his head. he felt that disappointing taste of anticlimactic events as he locked it and shut the door. he could not go back outside. it was prohibited for him, and he had already tested his father's rules too many times this week.
"oh, but it wouldn't hurt just for a taste of fresh air," he said to himself five minutes after he locked it.
that was enough to convince him to go back outside. so he ran back down the stairs, not even caring about the three thousand people anymore, opened the entrance to the outdoors, and breathed.
he glanced back at the side of the house, the bricks tinted a dull grey, aged spray paint droplets staining one patch of bricks. he loathed this house.
he walked down the driveway, past the home, and unto the sidewalk. he was walking, no, speeding towards the forest now, not one coherent thought in his head except one that shone so vividly to him.
he cut his arms on leaves as he ran past, soon drawing blood. the rocks made him fall and scraped his legs too severely for his own taste. he swatted bugs away and, before long, began scratching mosquito bites. he expected the traveling through the forest to not be easy, but he could have never known that it would be this menial. it was nothing like his imagination.
thankfully, the trees seemed to disappear, and, behold, there was a large patch of unmarked land.
here, too, was nothing like his imagination.
there was no form of life around. the grass was wilted and yellow, crumpling as he stepped. particles of dust flew where he expected butterflies would, stray branches were ladybugs would be.
this was reality. this was what the field actually looked like.
eren hated reality.
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nightmares dressed in cute little skirts
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gaping silence.
with one quick look around, eren could not see anything past the darkness. it was like a hood was thrown on him, but this time around, he couldn't get it off.
sniffles and choked cries echoed from his right. he ran in the direction of the sound, though he was not sure if he was even going the correct way anymore.
he stopped when he saw a hunched-over body on the floor, their hair shaking as they hiccuped. eren gasped as he saw the boy in the woods weeping on the floor with their back facing him.
the action itself evoked tears out of eren as well, shuddering and gasping. the boy was supposed to be his plane ticket out of reality, his souvenir of a paradise he only knows from reappearing dreams. why was he crying so vividly, so fervidly? was this a sign of eren's disappearing freedom, his last glance at the boy until he was locked out of his imagination?
so many thoughts like this flew in and out of eren's head as he crept closer, the whimpers never stopping or decreasing in volume.
he clutched a small, torn, beige blanket to his chest. eren had never seen anything like it before! the closest thing he could compare it to was mikasa's old kitchen rug that they threw into the basement. it was much too rough for anyone to sleep with, but the boy fiddled with it so instinctively that it wouldn't surprise eren if the blanket had traveled with him throughout his entire life.
with one more step, eren was able to reach out and place his hand on his shoulder. and he did so, shaking him violently and whirring him around.
"don't cry," he said before thinking twice. his voice felt muted, similar to speaking underwater, except this time, his father wasn't attempting to drown him.
and yet, he did not wake up. instead, the boy holding the blanket suddenly withdrew from its tight grasp of it and looked at eren.
"if you cry, i'll... i'll lose hope too!"
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cotton flowers
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eren woke up with a jolt.
there was something pressing against his neck, something that held such force above him that he squirmed and thrashed, and that same light-headed feeling washed over him.
eren's father, a nameless man, grunted as he pushed his hands on eren's neck. eren's eyes widened with unmatchable horror.
eren has had many near-death experiences before. most of them correlated with his dad. this one, however, scared him beyond return. he couldn't breathe, he couldn't cough, he couldn't even summon the sound to gasp and scream.
his eyes slowly closed. freedom was coming closer. eren could almost smile at this thought. oh, he was so close! just one second away from getting to his freedom. to return to the field beyond the woods for the final time, to learning the boy in the woods' name.
with one last push, his head gave its final thrust. he closed his eyes, letting his reality swipe itself from right under his feet. he was no longer in that hand-me-down home, where rust and glass loved to lay, where spiders produced children and squirrels ran in the walls.
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into the fields
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eren was laying on his back in the middle of the field.
the boy was sitting next to him, murmuring little phrases eren could not comprehend as he plucked daisy petals. the airy breeze floated above him and carried the petals with the wind.
he could only wonder where they would end up.
as he rose up, the boy didn't stop his quiet reciting and instead grew louder. at last, he was able to hear what they had been saying.
"he loves me, he loves me not."
eren was right in front of him now, yet they did not look up, as if there was a barrier between the two no matter how close they were, a separation of realities.
he watched one lone petal float away as he plucked, curious as to where they would go, but the wind stopped for just a moment, giving it the time to rest on a patch that seemed to be full with other petals.
eren got up and walked to this spot, to gather them all up and count how many times the boy had said these things, to estimate how long he had been stuck in the realm between eternal sleep and dreaming.
as he walked, he noticed that there seemed to be too many to pile in his hand. it was a large message, spelled out to signify one word, one name: armin.
he glanced from the artwork on the grass the boy was making so effortlessly and magically to the boy himself.
taking a deep breath, eren took a risk in the hopes of dreaming forever.
"armin?"
the boy peered up immediately, his eyes wide and dropping his daisy.
eren pointed at the arrangement timidly, just in case he was saying it wrong.
he hoped too much that this was the boy's name. he wished and cried to find the boy and call him by his name, but now that he had finally found him, eren wasn't sure if it was worth it.
in the most blatant form of reality, eren had just abandoned his humanity for the boy beyond the woods. the boy he knew nothing about.
tears started flowing down the boy's face, he grinned and pointed to himself, saying one word, exactly identical to eren's.
"armin."
eren no longer regretted losing his grip on reality. instead, he smiled, and embraced the boy beyond the woods known as armin.