Black birds began to scream and nervously fly back and forth from trees to wire. Silence echoed violently in the air. The wind blew as if to carry the wary away and a new presence in. On this hot August day it carried an unfamiliar chill with it that one might think would have blown off the sea during the beginnings of winter. This icy breeze clashed with the sticky hot asphalt making the sound of an egg being dropped into a frying pan, sizzling and cracking involuntary. On a usual day the streets and apartments would be busy with laughter, talking, music, and playing, but as if everyone had known something the streets and apartments lay empty or their dwellers were hiding deep away inside.

A boy sat on the corner holding a basketball hoping to have someone to play with, but no one was around. He sat there with a growing feeling of discontent in his chest and stomach. To him nothing was right, the air felt different, he felt an awkward sinking feeling in his heart as if he had done something wrong by crossing the railroad tracks on this day to play in this neighborhood. He didn’t know why he felt this way. He had permission, it wasn’t a school night, and he had eaten dinner. The cool breeze caught him and sent goosebumps down his skin and he could feel the small hairs on his back stand up. Then as if a wall hit him, a gush of icy cold air blew that had dropped in temperature, what felt like 20 degrees. Just as the chill caught his bones, a man turned the corner and began to come over the hill.

At first the boy could only make out that it was a man. As he got closer he could begin to make out that he was wearing an older light brown three piece suit, like the ones he had seen in movies. By this time he was half way down the hill and the boy could hear him whistling a tune that was unfamiliar to him, but had a steady time and seemed to be a happy song. With every step the cold grew stronger and the chill felt like it was going deeper and deeper into him. The man kept walking leisurely, whistling his tune. He hadn’t looked or taken any notice of the boy. As he got closer the black birds noisily flew away. The man had a smile on his face as if he had a secret that nobody knew but him. The man carried a cane though he seemed to not really need it and he wore sunglasses and wore a hat though the sun was past the trees and growing dim. He got closer and closer to the boy and just as he was parallel with him on the road the man suddenly stopped and looked at him through the dark tinted sunglasses.

“Do you know why rainbows cry?” the man said in a high pitched crackilly voice with a long drawn out curling smile that grew further and further past the point where a normal smile should end and kept widening all the way across his face almost reaching each ear. The boy tried to get up and run but his muscles wouldn’t move and his voice couldn’t scream, as if they had been frozen by the cold and were unresponsive. His heart pounded with terror. His eyes remained involuntarily opened, locked on the man and his smile that abnormally crossed his face. The man slowly reached for his face grasping his glasses and pulled them off never moving his head. As he pulled them off and the boy saw the man’s eyes terror stabbed the boy’s heart with pure fear. Then as if suddenly crippled and feeble with age the man hobbles slowly toward the boy. He bends down still with the smile and whispers, “I want your presence, take my present. They steer clear of the fear you hear, but you will come to accept it.”

The boy wakes up in cold sweat lying on the lawn in front of the apartments to loud music playing and his friends yelling at him to get up. The apartments and streets are filled with people yelling, talking, laughing, and his friends are playing and its scorching hot outside. His friend yells at him again, “Get up we have to go home, it’s getting dark.” As he stands up his friend runs off and yells, “see ya tomorrow clumsy, don’t fall down again on the way home.” The boy thinks to himself, “Did I fall down, and dream that all?… I must have.” He began to stumble, groggily home. As he is about to cross the railroad tracks he realizes he has something in his pocket. He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small wooden box that has “Open Me” engraved on it neatly. The boy is confused and he doesn’t know where he got it from. There were so many things from this day that didn’t make since. He put it back in his pocket and ran home.

He washed his hands and face and got ready for bed. He walked out of the bathroom and into his room and took the box out and put it on his desk and sat there and looked at it. His curiosity was burning, he wanted to know what was in the box and maybe it would help jog his memory about what happened that day. He sat there for thirty minutes pondering the thought of opening it or throwing it away. He finally reached up and took the box in his hand holding the bottom and gripping the top. He slowly started pulling the top back. His heart began racing again. As he opened it, all of the feeling and memories started to rush back to him and just as he opened it he remembered the stabbing pure fear. HE DID REMEMBER! He looked in the box and grew confused. He dropped the box on the floor… it was empty.

He got up and walked into the bathroom and went to the sink and shoveled some water into his mouth. He looked at the sink for a moment and remembered a phrase though he wasn’t fully sure where he had heard it. Quietly to himself he whispered, “I want your presence, take my present. They steer clear of the fear I hear, but I have come to accept it.” He smiles and looks into the mirror, and where his eyes balls use to be there were now deep, dark holes of black! He smiles at his reflection and feels like a tune.