Thomas was a confusing child. No one could tell if he was a prodigy or if he had a disability. It all started from when he was young, when he would sit in front of the TV watching movies with his best friends, Heaven and Aiden. He wouldn’t even make it to the end. As soon as something exciting happened on TV, he’d leap up with excitement.
One night he ran into the kitchen and threw an old brown paper towel roll at Heaven.
“Hey what was that for!?” Heaven grabbed the roll and gripped it, raising it above her head.
“Woah, woah, at ease matey! We’re pirates and you’ve just invaded my ship!”
“Oh!” Heaven smiled and hopped off the couch. “You didn’t guard your ship well enough! It’s mine now!”
The two banged their rolls together, then Thomas began whacking Heaven and Heaven laughed and whacked back. They both turned to Aiden, who had fallen asleep during the movie. They slowly crept up on him, giggles leaking out of their mouths until they were right above him, and then began whacking him with the rolls.
Aiden became the kraken, waking each of them with his two tentacles (Thomas’ robe string,) and his basketball became the ship’s cannonball. All was good until they cracked the TV with the basketball, and Thomas’ Mom had a fit.
All weekend afternoons were like that, even when they made it to kindergarten. Heaven and Aiden went to a charter school, and Thomas got homeschooled. He still saw them on weekends, when their adventures would resume. They’d start watching a movie and then with Thomas’ wild imagination, they’d be somewhere else. One night, they were goblins attacking New York City, the next they were campers driving down I-70. On school nights Thomas made up his own stories, and the three would play outside, pretending for hours on end with only the stuff in Thomas’ garage. No matter what though, Thomas was usually the knight and Heaven ws always the princess of their adventures, with Aiden being the dragon of some sort. Aiden didn’t mind. He loved monsters.
Sometimes, if they were eaten by the Aiden monster, Aiden made his friends go to his house and they were forced to play basketball with him. Basketball was so boring to Thomas, as the game required skill, not imagination. Aiden could make more hoops than Thomas in three minutes with his eyes closed than Thomas in a whole day.
Sometimes it got fun, because Aiden’s sister Autumn, who was younger by one year, would come out, and she loved Thomas' stories, and she did good voices. She could be Goldylocks one minute and Cinderella the next. Then the kids would have adventures with Autumn added into it. Autumn and Thomas would have a ball making stories together, Autumn would narrate and Thomas would get the world together. They always felt like movie directors or play producers.
As fun as all this was, nothing lasts forever. Soon Thomas was in middle school, but he still got up and ran around sometimes, pretending he was in his own story world. When Aiden was playing basketball outside, Thomas would sit on the bleachers with a notebook and pencil, writing his stories to life. Heaven would sometimes look over his shoulder and tease him, but he’d laugh and go back to writing.
By the time he was a teenager, Thomas’ Dad told him that enough was enough and he’d better stop daydreaming and go find a job. Thomas’s whole family thought it was weird Thomas would just be sitting at the table staring into space, thinking up a plot for a story. His Mom only allowed this weird behavior because he claimed that’s why he made money off his blog sites. Even so, his Mom was still worried about him.
She recommended he go see kids his own age, go see what Aiden was up to. Thomas reluctantly said he’d go see Aiden, but he knew what he’d be up to. The same thing he had been up to all those years ago. Basketball.
Thomas went to Aiden’s Mama, who pointed him in the direction of the park, namely, the basketball court. Thomas bought two waters from the corner store, then waited for Aiden to be done playing. When Aiden came to the bleachers, sweaty and heaving, Thomas passed him a water and asked him if he’d like to read his newest notebook story, and be the voice of the zombies. Aiden said that Thomas better quit playing and grow up. “Quit playing!? You’re the one who's never stopped playing ball!” Thomas yelled, and the two got into a scuffle before Autumn, who was walking the family dog, broke it up.
“It hurts me to see you two fight like this,” Autumn said, turning to each of them. But the two could only stare at each other menacingly.
Thomas decided he’d just see what Heaven was up to. Afterall, Heaven had always been up for his games when they were young. She was probably the same old beautiful, fun, Heaven.
Heaven had a job. She was walking around with a fast-food cap and a clipboard, taking orders as she went. Thomas sat writing at a table by himself until Heaven came up to him and told him that he was going to have to order something if he wanted to stay at the outdoor-restaurant. He ordered a burger, and ate purposefully slowly, constantly checking the time to see when her shift was over. She spent most of the day wiping the sweat off her head and laughing and slapping some dude who kept flirting with her.
At the end of the day she stopped by Thomas’s table and said, “So what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
He reminded her of the times they spent at his house imagining they were protagonists, and after a good laugh, he said if she’d like to come by and watch a movie with him, just like old times.
Heaven told him she couldn’t come over at all, as she had a boyfriend, she turned and smiled at the boy who had been flirting with her the whole day. She said they couldn’t even be friends anymore, as it would be weird to have a boy friend who wasn’t her boyfriend.
“It isn’t weird to me,” Thomas told Heaven, and that just made her lash out about how it isn’t weird to him because he still has a child mind and can’t seem to grow up. Then her boyfriend walked up and asked Thomas to leave her alone.
Tired and heartbroken, Thomas started his walk home. All his best friends had moved on, and grown up, while he found it impossible to. Everybody was telling him to grow up, and he did want to, he really did, but his brain just wouldn’t mature. He still loved imagining the characters in his head and letting them roam around in his head and on the page. He still loved being a kid and he dreaded birthdays because it meant he was getting older.
He was staring at the droplets of rain on the sidewalk when he ran into someone.
He looked up and saw Autumn.
She gave the boy a weak smile and asked what was wrong.
“I feel like I’m a child in a teenager's body! No matter what I can never grow out of my childhood stories! I love making stories up in my head and I love creating worlds and characters!”
Autumn was quiet for a moment. “Then don’t give it up.” She said finally. “I love imitating voices and making new ones. So I’m going to become a voice actor. Tons of people tell me to grow up.”
“But I don’t want to voice-act. I want to-”
“Write. Just write. There’s a profession for that, you know.”
Thomas smiled. This was what he needed to hear. “Autumn, I could kiss you.”
“Wha- really!?” The girls eyes widened and she looked around.
“Woah, woah, it’s just a metaphor. But seriously, thanks. You're brilliant.”
Thomas became a novel writer and a playwright, and won the nobel prize for literature a decade later into his career. He had even married Autumn, the now well-known voice actress.
At a party Thomas saw Aiden and Heaven again. Aiden, his brother in law, had become a professional basketball player and turned pro. Aiden said he was proud of Thomas and was glad he was super successful.
Heaven said when she had heard Thomas won the Nobel Prize, she had to come see if it was truly the Thomas she had grown up with. Heaven was now a driver for hire and had broken up with her co-worker.
Thomas only smiled. “I wouldn’t have been here without you all, who encouraged me as a kid. Especially you, Autumn.”
The End
My name is Shila Williams, and I have been passionate about writing and drawing since I knew how to spell. I grew up in North Carolina, as well as living and traveling abroad. I write to inspire children's minds to imagine and take them on a fun and adventurous journey.
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