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Fable:
In the beginning there was a boy. And, full of wonder and mischief, the boy barrelled right into childhood, the way most boys are wont to do, looking for fun.

But the other boys, the cruel sort (you know which ones I mean), did not want to share their fun with him. They thought he was misshapen, and wrong, and foolish. That he was not a boy at all.

Though he certainly wasn’t shaped like other boys, he knew it was so because the wind had told him (and the wind doesn’t speak to just anybody). So he said so.

But because the wind doesn’t speak to just anybody, and it hadn’t told the others,
they called him a liar.

And chased him. And threw things.

The boy-who-would-be ran away. After a time, he found himself alone in a dark forest. Exhausted by the chase and with tears streaming down his face, he fell, and where he fell he cried, and then he slept for a while.

Upon waking, and without forethought, the boy placed his hands palm-flat against the earth as if to steady himself.

And, to his surprise, he felt it breathing.
In-Out.
In-Out.
It was a very low rhythm, almost indistinguishable from the clinking of the clear water and the comforting hum of the wind in the trees above.

Birds sang, and the boy could tell them apart for the first time.

Beasts watched him cautiously, but they didn’t run.

He didn’t feel like crying anymore.

Many years he’d spent sleeping in this enchanted place. He was now a man (though still not shaped like other men), taller, stronger, and wiser.

And when he looked down his lengthened limbs he found his feet were cloven.