The Stick

      A young boy runs through the heavily wooded forest, carrying a light wooden spear in his hands. He is the hunter of his tribe, venturing out into an unfamiliar territory where a fierce lion that has slowly been hunting members of his tribe lurks. Suddenly he stops, spotting his prey. The old lion is sleeping carelessly in the rays of the sun. The boy creeps up slowly trying not to make a sound, but then he steps on a twig, and there is a loud crack, giving away his presence. The lion’s eyes bolt open and spot the juvenile. At the sight of his weapon the old lion pulls himself to his feet and runs away in the opposite direction. Giving chase, the boy runs after the mountain lion going as quick as his feet can carry him. Then, without warning, the scenery around the boy changes.

      Bullets are whizzing over head as the boy leaps in to a trench that lies before him. He looks down and sees that his spear has morphed into a gun and his clothes are now that of a soldier. Enemy soldiers are closing in from every side and he is trapped with no escape. Since the boy would rather die with pride than die a coward he bravely leaps out of the trench and lets out a fearless cry, shooting blindly in every direction and then he starts to run again.

      His army boots start to vanish with every step he takes and the next thing he knows is that his feet are bare. As he runs, he feels the hard dirt beneath his feet turn into hot sand. The boy stops and looks around him, desert engulfs everything but the sky. The flaming, orange sun sinks slowly in the distance, and in its majestic ball of fury, four small black specks emerge and quickly grow larger. The boy quickly realizes that those four black specks are actually men on horses. They are not just any men though, they are desert thieves. Hastily the boy looked at his hands and the item in them, which once again, had changed. A sword now lay in the boy’s hand. He looked back up at the rapidly approaching thieves. His only chance of survival was to take the men down and steal one of the stallions so as to get to safety.

      He carefully braced himself and held the sword with a firm grip. The four men quickly dismounted their fine black steeds and unsheathed their swords. Their ringleader, who was the tallest of them all, stood back and watched while the other three men slowly advanced. With one sharp blow the boy dropped the closest desert thief. The other two thieves lunged at the boy only to suffer a similar fate. Now, only the fallen men’s leader remained.

      He attacked the boy with a great fury, striking harder and harder with every blow, but each blow that the man gave the boy blocked. Finally the man delivered an attack with such force that the boy dropped his sword. He stood there staring at the thief.

“Now you shall die for the trouble that you have caused me,” the thief whispered. He carefully lifted the sword to the boy’s neck and…

“Peter! Time for dinner!” the boy’s mother called.

“Coming!” he responded as he jumped out of the sandbox, ran past the culvert, by the bushes, and up the steps where he only paused a moment to pet his old cat lying in the sun. 

Author's Note

Reviews/comments are always more than welcome!