The wires passed from hand to hand in the complex trading ritual. THe boy watched raptly, taking his training with the serious concentration of surgeons and chess-masters.

"You wrapped the wrong red and pulled the wrong green," he noted to his papa in mixed Spanish. The wires were then braided into his hair, the auburn hues mixing with the artificial Christmas tones.

"The day your hair grows out of these strands, you will have all there is to desire in this world. On that day, you may cut these colors and move on to the next."

The tea kettle screamed "Finish!" and the kitchen tiles glowed. Mornings together were over. The boy was waking, drifting upward in the levels of dreams.

In his hand were green and red.

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Galen almost 14 years ago

Surreal, and yet potentially realistic coming of age ritual. The pacing is perfect and I felt the readers walked along with the story teller, and with the boy: "The boy was waking, drifting upward in the levels of dreams." Well polished story!

jadetine (joined about 14 years ago)
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Karen is an avid foodie/gamer/SFF reader who, despite existing for several years, has still not decided what she wants to be when she grows up.

Actually, Karen is an aspiring writer with a mysteriously irrelevant past. She spends her days laughing at the people still stuck in law school, ruminating over her engineering degree and coughing at the dust covering her collection of art supplies and musical instruments.

A Jill of all trades, yet master of none. Except for perhaps procrastination and awkward humor.

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License

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

genres

fantasy surrealism

tags

childhood dream surreal home ritual

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