WriteInvite.co.uk - Short Story Competitions

My Little Boy Of Paper

by Joanna Campbell

The 23rd Jan 2010 WriteOnSite Winning Entry

He is soaring through the magical sky, palest-rose skin against rich, black, star-studded night. The wind carries him, my prayers carry him. Like a darting silverfish,skittish and jubilant, on a velvet cushion perched up high, far from predators, he is safe from harm up there.

He is a laughing cherub, crowned with golden curls, squeezing my heart hard in his round little hands. Swathed now in white blankets as he passes the frozen north, he is immune to the ice. He is throbbing with the heat of my love.

Now skimming above sweltering jungle, the tropical people hold their pineapple burdens tight to their heads with one long dark hand. With the other hand they shield their eyes from the brilliant sun and look up high. They see my son racing through their arc of white-hot sky.

He charges over the moon-freckled ocean as day dips into night. He touches the moonbeams with a tiny finger, smiling at the silver gleam on the shell-sliver of his smallest finger-nail.

Midnight brings him to turrets and towers rasping against the cloud and he pirouettes neatly over every manic weather-vane spinning in the bite of winter winds.

Now he lands. I feel him touching down in the depot, then onwards to the offices where he will be handled, checked and sorted. This is the worst of the waiting by far. My eyes are thick with tears. I am bruised in my soul.

He is here now! My arms reach out to the letter, damp from the rain and cold from the wind, lying so square and matter-of-fact on the mat.

This is my son. He has flown through the night from so far away, from his contented new mother, all the way through a universe to me.

I take out the photograph. A note is paper-clipped to it, cutting deep into his face, scarring his palest-rose flesh. I remove it and stroke the indentations away, smooth the pain. There, there, your mother's here, my sweet boy of shiny paper. I may be a world away, but I'm here with you now in this dank hallway, as happy as a skittish silverfish, my heart darting with joy to see you.