Thomas and the River Branch City

The little boy crouches on a river bank, his hair tussled by the warm spring wind. Clean patent leather shoes sinking into the muddy ground, he leans over in his hunched position and picks at the long strands of grass before him.

"Thomas, be careful."

He turns towards the voice of his grandmother, sitting calmly on a bench with her hands folded in her lap. Her neat tartan skirt moves stiffly in the breeze, but it remains less rigid than her thin, clean smile.

Thomas looks down at the water once more, squinting his eyes at the ripples. The wind rushing past his ears sings to him, crying for attention in strained whispers. As more waves begin to undulate, he imagines that he can see another world in the water. The bubbling leafy sky of a twig town in another dimension makes him grin and bend forward.

Suddenly, he can see tiny people with grassy arms reaching out to him, their smiles as inviting as the wind song, now met with the rhythm of swaying fields, the harmony of lapping water. His desire to enter the small glittering universe swells and pulses with the beat of his heart.

A hand grabs his arm, burning like hot coals against his goose-pimpled skin. His grandmother's face hovers over him, creased with anger, disgust, and ancient disapproval. "Don't look to other worlds for a better life, Thomas. Find the music in this one; your soul belongs with this one."