I got into a creative writing mode and wrote this. Please enjoy 🙂

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The year was one of melting ice cream and broken air conditioners. Archie Banks sat on the edge of the river that had once been lined with daisies, now reduced to nothing more than weeds and pieces of broken branches. He rolled up his checked shirt, skipped a few rocks, and as the clouds darkened, he held an old vintage photograph of a beautiful woman in one hand, creased and weathered by time, almost faded. Parts of him resembled her, the smile mostly, bright as the moon, though these days it looked more like an upside-down crescent.

Drops of liquid splashed and danced on the photo. He wiped the image and his face, and the clouds wept too, softly, then much too strong. And that was when he saw it.

A body. Face down.

He froze. It passed him by, and for a moment he held his breath, face whiter than the veneer teeth his stepmother always flashed when she wasn’t busy chasing him with the broom. He did what I or any sensible child would do: made a dash for it. To home, I mean. Little feet echoed through the woods, stumbled twice, but made it back in one piece, more or less.

Home.

“And where in God’s name have you been?” his stepmother asked, reaching for a tough leather belt. Her favourite. But Archie was quick on his feet, made a dash for his room, slam, lock, under the covers. He began to weep, and despite the banging and yelling, soon fell fast asleep.

The next day. School.

“Has anyone heard of the boy who cried wolf?” Mrs. Sunny asked with a frown. The class groaned.

“Well,” she said, “there are lies we tell people for attention, until the lies themselves are the ones that destroy us.”

“I don’t think that’s how the story goes, Mrs. Sunny,” said one of the children.

“Well, if you can do a better story, be my guest,” Mrs. Sunny said, frowning.

“My pleasure.”

And for the next ten minutes or so, that child stood in front of the class and told the most brilliant story, but Archie was in a world of his own. He thought about the riverbank, and he thought about the body. But most of all, he thought about going back to investigate.

And so he did. But the body was not there. Of course it wasn’t. It had probably rotted away or been eaten by a bear. It might be of great interest to you to know that this story took place in Canada, where bears did these sorts of things, the carnivorous ones, not the ones you might meet in a gay club, if you were into that sort of thing.

He contemplated under the beating sun what he should do, whether to tell someone or to investigate. But who would believe him? He asked himself the question found in the title of this story.

He decided, then, to follow the river for as long as his little feet could carry him. Perhaps he might find clues.

Somewhere on the horizon, the sun was packing her bags for the day. Archie knew he shouldn’t have wandered this far from home, but he could always follow the river back, one bend at a time. The ache of the truth compelled him to continue, even if only to convince himself. And just as the thought of giving up crept as high as the full moon that night, he saw something that made him scream.

The body.

This time, Archie did not hesitate. He did not hesitate to step into the river, soaking his clothes. He did not hesitate to approach the body, even when he knew deep down who it was. And he did not hesitate to run when the dead body in his arms was none other than himself.

His face was neither rotting nor bloated, but one of calmness and serenity. Graceful, even. He reminded Archie of an alternative life, perhaps in another universe where things might have turned out differently, happier, with his mum. Or in another universe where his pain ceased to exist, to finally have peace.

He held the body up, and the moonlight shone her brilliance onto their faces, before the body faded.

He took the picture of his mother and unfolded it. The image was broken by the creases, stained by years of tears, worn thin by the hands of a boy who had never truly known how to let go. He would often whisper to himself that everything was going to be okay, even when it wasn’t, that smiling through the pain would make it easier, because that’s what people expected him to do. And the thing with lies is, if you tell yourself enough times, perhaps you would believe it too.

He had become the boy who cried wolf, even when no one was there to hear his cries but the wind on lonely nights, through the covers, under the stars.

And the wolf. Who is the wolf but the truth he’s too scared to name? Grief dressed in black, disguised as his shadow, following him relentlessly.

It was time.

The picture fluttered onto the river, drifted away, and carried with it the body of the boy who had grieved.

***

The light of the house shone brightly as he approached. His dad sat on the porch, embraced him when he arrived. He did not ask where he’d been or what he’d been up to. His face was wet. Eyes swollen.

“Your stepmother,” he said, “was eaten by bears.”

“The carnivorous ones?” Archie asked. “Or the ones you find in a gay club?”

He raised an eyebrow, then knitted them tightly. “The former one,” he assured him.

“It’s just us now,” he said.

And for the first time in a long while, Archie’s smile was as full as the moon on that summer night.