On / by B.McGann
Once upon a time there was a young boy. He was not born into wealth or nobility. No, his parents were of humble origin. They were sad and bitter. The kind of bitter you only get after long, melancholy lives as poor peasants. He worked on their farm, where the days were long and opportunities to be a child were rare. If there was no drought that year and they managed a decent crop, most of it was taken to feed one hungry army or another. What they could sell was so heavily taxed by the king they could barely afford anything but the necessities. And sometimes not even that.
Despite his parents being as downtrodden and world weary as they were, they tried their best to keep their pessimism away from their little boy. His parents told him nice lies like “you can do anything you set your mind to,” or “you can be a baron if you work hard enough!” It was difficult for the young boy to believe them, especially when all he had ever known was cold, hunger, and aches. But then one day, his whole outlook on life changed. He knew with certainty what he wanted to be when he grew up. That was the day he was lost in the forest and found himself.
Running through the forest and playing aimlessly, as children his age tend to do, he lost track of time and realized a little too late that he did not know where he was. Being smarter than average, he decided that he would follow a stream until it crossed under a road. He did not know exactly where the road would lead, but it led somewhere and somewhere was an improvement to lost. From there, he would ask for directions and with a bit of luck he would be home in time for whatever passed as supper that night.
After what a child his age considers a long time, he spotted a road through the bushes. A flash of light kept the boy from carelessly stumbling onto the road. He quietly crept to the bushes and peered out with as much stealth as he could manage. What he saw next was astonishing: two real knights in full armor!
He was too far away to hear what they were saying but he noticed that the two knights were wearing different colors. One of whom wore the bright gold and green colors the young boy recognized as belonging to his king. The other wore unfamiliar deep red colors. The boy knew it to be an evil red, if colors were capable of being evil. He could also tell by the way they were facing off that the two knights were not entirely happy to be in the each other’s presence.
The knight wearing the unfamiliar red drew his sword and charged without hesitation. The ensuing sword fight the boy watched both scared and inspired him. Both knights moved with the practiced step obtained only through years of experience. The knight in the bright gold and green eventually proved to be the better. The young boy ran up and congratulated the victorious knight.
After hearing his story, the knight shared a meal with the boy and agreed to escort him home. The young farmer unleashed a torrent of questions to the knight, and the knight, to his credit, did his best to answer every one. That was the day that the boy decided to become a knight.
The boy would not stop talking about obtaining a knighthood, and it soon became obvious to his parents that he was not simply going through a phase. His dad made him a wooden sword and let him practice whenever responsibilities allowed. For years, the boy dreamed of becoming a knight. He would practice with the blacksmith’s oldest son and watched the knights train whenever he could sneak to the castle. Every ounce of energy was either spent practicing the routines he saw the knights maneuver through or thinking about the day he would don the bright gold and green colors.
Then one day he had his chance; the kingdom was in need of more knights. The king held several tournaments in which the winner would be knighted. Even though there could only be one winner from each district, the boy was confident because he was the best fighter in the district by anyone’s standards.
He defeated every would-be hero with little effort and fought his way to the finals. When he was told that his opponent was the blacksmith’s elder son, he had already won in his mind. The blacksmith’s son was certainly good but simply good was not enough to overcome the boy’s tenacity.
The young boy fought fiercely and scored several hits but had yet to land a fatal blow. With a perfectly executed parry of his opponent’s sword, the boy arched his sword up and over with true aim. But right before he could deliver the winning blow, the blade slipped free from his sword and he found himself holding nothing but an empty handle. The blacksmith’s son gave a knowing smirk.
Frozen with abject shock, the young boy helplessly watched his opponent swing hard, catching him on the jaw and knocking him out cold. He woke up just in time to see his still smirking opponent being carried away in celebration. It then dawned on him that his opponent, knowledgeable in steel, must have sabotaged his blade before the fight. There was no other explanation; he was the better fighter and had no problems with his sword in the other fights.
He pleaded with the tournament officials, begged for a rematch, and cried about the unjust fight. But they did not care. They said that they did not want knights that made excuses—they wanted knights that won.
The young boy never got a rematch, never became a knight, and died a poor peasant with an empty belly. That is because he lived in the real world where sometimes bad things happen to good people, one cannot always be anything they want to be, and everything does not always work out just because someone tries really hard. Because sometimes, disappointment is the only reward one gets for following a dream.