The boy who remained a mystery

Natalia has been living with her granny for more than 20 years. Her granddad worked as a carpenter. At that time, Natalia was around 10 when one day he inquired Natalia,

"Hey Nate, do you love trees?"

"Yes, I do. Why did you ask granddad?"

"Which part of the trees, in particular?"

She thought for a while and replied, "Uh-m, the trunk. That is what supports the whole tree, am I wrong granddad?"

Granddad was mindful of his words. So he slowly said, "That's true my lovely daughter."

He looked towards Natalia with such an awe and couldn't help himself not asking another question,

"Don't you think it's fruits are important?"

"Not all trees bear fruits granny. But all have trunk."- she replied in a beautiful tone.

Her granny had been watching their conversation for a while and she was longing to hear it more. Out of nowhere, thunder started overshadowing their conversation, so her granddad stopped questioning her. He felt as if a heavy rainfall was following the thunderbolt, and quickly, he went outside to see things if everything was alright. He didn't want any of the untreated wooden planks exposed for the rainfall to consume it.

Inside, both Natalia and her granny were waiting for their granddad to come back and get the conversation going and then have the dinner together.

But he didn't come inside. Natalia was fearful. Her granny was even more ambivalent of why he was still out hovering in the rain.

It was extremely dark and the power supply had already been cut off because of the wind. Slowly they approached towards their backyard where he had gone a while ago. To their surprise, he had closed his eyes under the fallen trunk of the old tree. The already feeble granny gained enough strength to push off the log, while Natalia tried to assist her giving an emotional support. By the time they ran him to the nearest hospital, his breath had left his body.

Natalia still recalls that horrific incident time and again when it rains. A part of the trunk is still left on the backyard on the same spot. Rest of the trunk was remodeled into a beautiful dining table which helps them connect them to him. The little Natalia vividly remembers the exact color of the oak trunk as "brown".

One day, she was coming back from her university. Inside her bag-pack had nothing but notebooks, diary and a laptop. And yeah, she was fond of nuts. It was already evening in the winter days. As soon as the train stopped, she hurriedly walked towards her house. Her house was in a far remote location from the train station. On her way, she felt some bizarre sound of a foot-step behind her but she didn't wish to turn around. She must have felt hungry walking, so she opened the bag while she was mid-way and started cracking nuts with her mouth. In the middle of nowhere, the sound must have exploded blatantly; the birds flew away from the branch they were sitting and the moths sitting on the flowers opened up their wings. As she was walking ahead, she felt the re-iterating sound of foot-steps behind her and managed to look behind. To her surprise was a young boy who looked decent with his eyes sparkling like the dew that sparkles on the morning grass. Natalia felt the urge to talk to him.

"Hey boy, what are you up-to? You lost or something?"

"Not really miss. On the way, I saw you and thought to accompany you to protect you from any harmful creatures."

"But I'm accustomed to it. I walk like this a few miles everyday."

"But I don't wanna see you hurt even by chance."

"By the way, how old are you, my boy?"

"I'm six years old miss."

"Cool. Where is your house boy?"

"Today can I make your house mine, too?"- he asked in a different tone.

"So, you mean you want to stay at my house?"-Natalia identified his tone.

"I think so."

"But what if someone comes to look for you and they accuse us for abduction?"

"Nobody will come miss. I have nobody."

"Oh my gosh! But how do you survive alone in this world?"

"God plans for everything and everyone miss."

"I'm so confused what do I tell to my granny", Natalia mumbles.

"Come on, boy"- she asks him to follow her up-to her house.

That evening, her granny was excited to see someone new in the house. She cooked for all of them and then served on the same dining table which they had made out of the fallen trunk while Natalia was a little girl. With her high-power lens, the boy disguised to be an old man.

"Am I dreaming?"- she said to herself.

She reluctantly proposed the boy to sleep, listening to her stories for those had made Natalia fall asleep in her childhood days. The boy agreed but Natalia was feeling uneasy as he was an outsider although an innocent, little boy.

Near the dim lamp-shed, she was telling him fairy-tale stories. He was spellbound listening to her stories and eventually fell asleep.

"The poor little boy must have been tired today"- she thought and slept.

"I will ask him to stay forever in this house. There is no one strong enough if something goes wrong in the house"- she would be fantasizing while she got up restless, that whole night.

"Tomorrow in the breakfast time, I will ask this to this boy"- she slept again smilingly.

While she woke up in the morning, she didn't see the boy but only a package that was wrapped in a brown paper box. But there was a note that said, "Please don't open it, never…" It seemed to be a suspicious package, so she decided to put it on the gable section of the roof. This was the only safe place for this suspicious package to remain eternal. By now, Natalia had understood what her granny really thought of that brown package.