The child walks through the path of hell.
Another little step.
Another one.
He is bleeding. His clothes are covered in dirt and he feels a sharp pain in his side. His blond hair is disheveled and dirty.
He and his father are injured. A bicycle accident. A branch went through one of the wheels and made them fall spectacularly, during a Saturday ride on the property of a neighbor. The vehicle fell on top of them.
His father cannot walk. The child does not know exactly what happened to him, but he is sure of two things:
His dad is dying.
And he is not going to let it happen.
He does not cry. He will not cry. He knows that, if he cries, he will not be able to stop doing it. And that is something that will not happen. Not today.
Today he is not going to stop.
Another step.
Come on. Another step.
The Australian sun burns his very young skin. He has walked what seems to be an eternal journey through hell. A scaffold for those condemned for the worst sins. But he confronts it by drawing courage from his innocence. A pure, immaculate temple. A source not yet stained with the banalities of the so-called maturity.
One hour. Another hour. His feet weigh him down, but he ignores them. They don’t matter right now.
His nose drips blood. It does not matter either. His mother will clean him up with a handkerchief once he gets home. He will tell her that his father is hurt, and that he needs her. She will seek help for them and everything will be fine. They will laugh about this at dinner.
Come on, move. Walk.
Nothing more in his mind, than his purpose. A fog that covers everything else.
Walk. Just walk.
Mirages. He sees mirages. Vague and slightly human figures. They look at him with curiosity. Stuff from his past. Memories that he lost. Centuries or seconds pass, as he marches. Time becomes strange.
After thousands of years, there it is.
That one over there. That one. Is it real?
Yes.
There it is. It is finally there.
His house.
He walks faster. His bones creak in a way they should not, but he barely listens to them.
He is running. Darn it, he's running. He reaches the structure and suddenly stops.
In fear, he touches it with one of his little fingers.
It feels solid. Thank God it it's solid. Thank God it's real.
He hits the door with both of his fists. It feels unreal, like a fragment of reality inside of a nightmare.
His mother opens.
She looks at him with eyes wide open as he has ever seen them. Mute and paralyzed for a second.
He opens his mouth.
"Mom, help me. We had an accident. My dad is hurt".
He did it. God, he finally did it.
He smiles. Everything gets dark. The last thing he feels are those motherly arms that receive him anxiously the moment he falls.
The path through hell leads to heaven.
Seven-year-old Tyler Moon walked two kilometers back to his home with nine broken ribs and both lungs punctured after suffering a bicycle accident with his father, David, who suffered severe injuries on his chest and back. They both were in serious danger of death.
Image credit: Pixabay. / #realstory
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