Not every story starts with Once Upon A Time, fairy-tale, twinkling music accompanying it in the background. Rather, some stories happen every day, not once in a while. And they escape from coming into notice, failing to make it to the Once Upon A Time theme because of the frequency with which they occur. Such is the story of a small boy who made friends with a boy his age.
Adrian, stunted for his age with a snub nose and almond eyes often walked the streets of the town of Calahan alone. He was used to of scurrying the narrow alleys of Calahan, kicking dust with his small feet or tracing patterns in the stones etched into the street’s surface. Often, he would rush along an ant, zig-zagging and snaking through the crowd, trying to figure where it’s colony resided but in the end, he would lose sight of the ant’s passage or it would disappear into a hole so tiny, Adrian would find himself hopeless.
He never went much further from home. On the third and the sixth day of the week, all students were expected to sit under the sheds from dusk to dawn and learn for the purpose of educating them. The children, of various ages, sat in bunches and were taught about the Greek myth and ancient Roman history, tales of the colosseum, and wars fought on dragons, and the human nature and its vile aspects, the one that it hid under the guise of morals and well-being.
But while all the children sat in clusters, tittering with their friends over the ways common human follies escaped a man’s notice, Adrian sat on his own, watching all the historical myths and legends unfold in front of his eyes. His vivid imagination was his only friend and his solitude was his staple. Most of the children in Calahan knew nothing about Adrian and when people don’t know someone, they put them in the fartherest corners of their mind, never bothering to know about him or befriending him.
To the children of the town, Adrian was a child who did not want to mingle or have friends. But Adrian always thought that he was the one left out, with nobody wanting to be his friend except the commander of the ants who would roam the streets of the town just like he did. But the leader of ants would never stay, he only made Adrian pursue him in a wild-goose chase until finally, like the others, he would disappear in some hole or walk a thin line between stones in the street that Adrian could not follow with his eyes or trace with his fingers.
Just as Adrian was little known among the children, he was known much more among the adults as a child who tried hard to blend in but since he was more often than not rejected, he always ended up letting solitude hug him in its warm embrace. The adults also knew that mischief was never synonymous with Adrian. Unlike the other kids he would not even steal as much as a bite of bread, neither would he ever tease an adult for their sluggish pace or forgetful memories. They always knew Adrian as a boy who helped the elderly and respected people.
