The Little Master (Part 1)

The little master awoke and put an unsteady finger to his lips, then his cheek, then his hair. He tenuously rubbed the corners of his eyes, digging recklessly until the last of the sharp irritants were purged. The ceiling above him was gray in the dark, and the water stains cycled swiftly through their reticent routine of shapes at once familiar and abstract.

He raised his head in silence and looked down at his feet, mysteriously uncovered by the night, his tiny toes wiggling at him. He wrinkled his nose at them and let his head ease back onto the pillow. He shut his eyes and forced his head further down into the fluff, until the edges of the depression closed about his ears. The sounds of the room became quiet and oppressive, and his breathing became obscene and enveloped his thoughts like a furnace, burning away the last impurities of dream. After a few revelatory moments the maintaining of this posture became difficult and uncomfortable. He relaxed his neck muscles and the room awakened once more.

The big clock on the wall, ticking steadily, confused him, and while he knew with enough time he could understand its meaning, the hands by then would have surely moved and he would have to start over. The digital clock on his bed stand was much faster, especially in the dark. 2:08am. After some very basic arithmetic he decided that school was a long time off, even though six hours was still a mostly abstract concept to him.

The door was closed, and no light seeped in beneath it, but soft blue-gray moonlight from the large and shadeless window on the opposite wall cast a large cross-shaped shadow on the green bathrobe hanging upon it. A blue shirt with green stripes and a pair of black pants sat upon a wooden chair in front of the closet. He remembered the day before, his mother asking for his approval before removing the shirt from a plastic hanger, him nodding his head absently.

He no longer needed to check under the bed before setting his small feet upon the ground; he was much too grown up for that. He padded softly on the warm wooden planks, heated from below by the furnace pipes. A yawn yanked at the corners of his mouth and set his thin tongue in retreat and his small, sharp teeth to glinting wetly in the moonlight, as he rounded the corner of the bed.

One small finger stretched the elastic of his underwear and let it snap back audibly against his skin. He repeated this passively until reaching the door and placing one hand on the brass-colored handle and turned it. The hallway was darker, but when he reached the stairs, the light coming from the windows in the living room made traversing the wooden steps easier.