The Boy in the Southwest Corner of the Village

Scratchy trees bordered the village with a perimeter tighter than any grandmother’s squeezing hug. Leaving the village looked to be a difficult task, if anyone in the village even wanted to leave. Sure, the skies were often gray unless if it was sunset and then they became every other color known to man besides blue, and the grass was a polka-dotted patchwork of green and brown, and everything was not quite so beautiful but not quite so ugly, but the land was fertile and the river was plentiful.

And the people were nice.

But there was the one boy who lived in the southwest corner of the village in a thicket of the scratchy trees, small trees, baby trees, basically bush-trees.

No one could see inside of his strange home as the branches coiled around with such ferocity and opaqueness that they let in less light than the walls of the brick houses in the village. The boy in the southwest corner of the village had the one opening for him to head in and out of his home. He did leave occasionally, but he was often found inside his thicket, busy with something.

Always so busy with something.

During the day, people wouldn’t see the boy much at all. There were the days that everyone collected at the village center and sang songs and played games, he wasn’t there. There were the feasts on other days where everyone collected at high noon, he wasn’t there. They didn’t see the boy on holidays nor birthdays nor Saturdays nor Christmas-days. Occasionally, they’d see him as the sun was setting, always quick to move through the village, hurrying with some task.

He was a fleeting ghost that you weren’t sure if you saw, and then when you did your double take, he was triple gone.

The boy usually left his home in the dark of night, scattering gems around the village in little hiding places. The villagers would find them, keep them, collect them, share them, gift them, regift them… they loved the gems. For the longest time, they had no idea where the gems came from. But Sorona who lived in the largest wooden house in the southern area of the village finally found out as she was up late one night, unable to sleep, and saw him sneaking around the village and placing gems everywhere.

Sorona spread the word, and the people she spread the word to spread the word, and so on, until the word was spreading itself, and everyone in the village knew.

They began to show up to the home of the boy who lived in the southwest corner of the village… day after day… expressing their gratitude verbally, sometimes leaving gifts of their own. Sorona made beautiful paintings and left the boy a portrait. Macall made drawings with charcoal and left him one. Poloon crafted figurines from wood and placed several of them outside of the thicket of baby bush trees.

The people of the village kept showing up, and they kept doing this, but they didn’t see the boy, nor did they hear from him. But each time they showed up, the gifts had been removed. They wondered if the boy had taken them into his home, or if he had simply discarded them. 

The people of the village kept finding the gems all around their village, sparkling from deep within leafy bushes, catching the light of the hidden sun from underneath rocks, and in all other kinds of places. The boy hadn’t stopped placing the gems everywhere, so maybe he did enjoy the gifts that he was being given.

But why wasn’t he saying anything?

One day, the people of the village all showed up to the home of the boy who lived in the southwest corner of the village at the same time, and they all began speaking to him at the same time, with the same message. They wanted to know what he was doing. They wanted to know how he was doing.

The boy emerged from the thicket.

Frightened eyes paired awkwardly with a little smile.

The boy cleared his throat and spoke. “Monday is the start of it all, and I’m busy busy in the mornings and then I tidy up at night. Tuesday is my day. Tuesday is my day to smile. Tuesday is when I need your gifts, your paintings, your drawings, your figurines. Monday is the start for you. But really, Wednesday is the start for me. Wednesday I am busy busy in the morning and then busy busy in the evening. Thursday I ease into the day, and a quick gift could help fuel me because I’m busy busy in the evening. Friday is busy busy in both the morning and the evening. Saturday, yes Saturday could use the fuel of gifts in the morning, and then I am gone in the evening. Sunday I am gone all the while, a vanished creature, you won’t find me Sunday. And this is why Monday and Tuesday are your first days and my last days. This is why Tuesday is the day I need your gifts the most. You have no idea…”

The boy’s voice broke and he stopped speaking. He was hunched over with an invisible burden, and his eyes only dared to trace the feet of his fellow villagers.

“Why?” Sorona asked. “Why those days? Why are you so busy from Wednesday to Sunday? Doing what?”

“Thursdays I could use some refueling, Saturdays I could use some refueling, but Tuesday is the day I need your gifts most of all. Your Tuesday gifts help tremendously.”

Macall shook her long hair out of her face, examining the confused looks on her silent, fellow villagers. She turned back to the boy. “I think we just don’t understand. What is it that you’re tasked with?”

“I don’t have the lives that you have,” the boy responded. “I admire your lives. And I admire your gifts. Your gifts allow me to pretend I am there with you, living your lives, talking with you.”

“Why don’t you?” Poloon asked, clutching another wooden figurine in his hand.

The boy simply shook his head.

“Is there anything we can do to help?” Sorona asked.

“Your paintings, your drawings, your figurines. Your colors, the brightness, your artistry. The insight into your life, the insight into your you, the insight into your soul. Surface level, skin. Heart level, soul.”

Everyone’s eyes bounced back and forth from one another, not entirely sure they understood. They felt an understanding hanging in the air that they couldn’t get a full grasp of. They had a partial grasp… in pitch-black… not a light to be found.

The boy continued. “Thursdays I could use some refueling, Saturdays I could use some refueling, but Tuesday is the day I need your gifts most of all. Your Tuesday gifts help tremendously.”

“Well, today is Tuesday.” Sorona handed the boy in the southwest corner of the village her newest painting with blues bluer than blueberries and greens greener than green cherries. It featured a goose goosier than gooseberries drinking through a straw straw-ier than strawberries.

The boy smiled at the painting in his hand. He looked up at Sorona, blues staining her fingertips, remnants of green streaked across her chest, neck, and cheeks. He nodded a thank you to her, to everyone, and he ducked back into his mysterious home. Everyone else shouted out goodbyes, figuring they’d get no response, and when they didn’t, they weren’t the least bit upset.

The boy continued laying gems out everywhere. And the villagers continued bringing him gifts, but only on Thursdays and Saturdays and especially on Tuesdays when they delivered their master projects, their very best works. Over the years, the trees in the village grew more leaves and bore more fruit, the skies became blue-adjacent, and the patchy grass became a little less patchy. More fruit was able to be collected, and the villagers traded the fruits for the gems and the gems for the fruits and the gems for all other sorts of things. People from surrounding villages entered their village and they made their acquaintances, and the gems that they had proved to be excellent things to barter with.

The village bloomed like a lazy flower that finally heard the news of spring. The people were the petals, and they reaped the rewards off the sun shining down on them. But they never forgot to leave their gifts for the boy in the southwest corner of the village… on Thursdays and Saturdays… but especially on Tuesdays.