Impossible

1

"Don't talk to him, he's an outsider. And people say he's a witch, just look at his eyes!" A girl whispered to Joshua, whose eyes grew wide. He looked over at the boy sitting alone and felt guilty.

It was a sunny Sunday morning, and the children were playing innocently in the church yard. Joshua felt stricken and confused. He was going to go over and talk to the boy, but then the girl had stopped him, who looked at him with a sickeningly innocent expression. 

He paused, before taking a deep breath, "Well, well, I don't care! He shouldn't have to be lonely."

"But he's a witch, he's evil, people say he's temptation." The girl gasped.

Joshua frowned, and glanced at the boy, who was looking directly at him. And he could see no form of evil in him, he looked slightly sad if anything, and he turned back to the girl.

"Don't be silly, you're just making up stories now." He said bravely, though he didn't feel it. Surely what they were saying couldn't be true. At least that's what he hoped.

He walked away from the girl and forcefully over to the boy and sat down next to him on the wall. "Hi!" He smiled, and the boy looked over at him.

"Why are you talking to me?" He asked, simply curious.

"Well why shouldn't I?"

"Because people say I'm a witch. They say I'm evil."

"Well, are you?"

He paused for a second, hesitating. "No... I don't think so."

"See, exactly! You're not a witch then."

"But... that's not what everyone says." He looked away from him, and down.

"But they don't know you. They're not you so they can't say you're a witch." He smiled at him, and the other boy looked up at him, as if he had suddenly broken the spell, and he could finally make sense of it.

"O-oh."

"I'm Joshua by the way," He grinned at him, a captivating grin that won him over.

"Samuel." He said cautiously back but smiled all the same. "Does this mean we're friends now?"

"Of course." He laughed, and Samuel found himself smiling. No one had befriended him before, no one even bothered trying, except this gappy toothed, messy haired, freckled boy, who was smiling madly at him. And he felt something stir in him. A love for this boy. And he laughed with him.

Then, suddenly, the bell rang, disrupting any further conversation, and Joshua looked up suddenly, and grabbed his hand, running towards the church.

The people at the church were stunned, they thought that Samuel was simply a witch, never to have anyone, but to see this innocent but gripping his hand shocked them. He refused to sit next to anyone else, he demanded to sit next to Samuel, who was shocked. He never thought anyone would do something like this for him.

And they were shocked as he was usually such a passive and shy boy but granted his demand.

And there was the start of a beautiful friendship, possibly more. And simply out of the kindness of Joshua's own heart, he had now formed a friendship that would inevitably condemn him for eternity, and not a single soul could stop the butterfly effect he had set in motion.