The Untimely Death of Little Ruby Rider

Chapter 1: The Genderless Child

In a small village lived a young child, whom everyone called Ruby, because of the ruby red cloak that they were always seen wearing. Some even went as far as to call them Red. Ruby was like every child, they loved sweets, playing in the town square with the other children and staying up past their bedtime. Yet though Ruby looked and acted just like every child, one thing separated them from all the others. Though the town ran amok with little boys and girls, Ruby had never felt quite right amongst either of them. They had tried to play with the little girls and act like the little girls, but that wasn't quite right. So they tried to act like the little boys and that didn't feel right either. And that begged the question: did they really have to choose? Ruby's favorite was when all the boys and girls gathered in the town square for a game of kick the can or basketball. There it didn't matter. To Ruby, children had always far more open minds than any adult they had ever met. Though adults were often prone to calling children naive and silly, Ruby had that their friends neither cared nor questioned the idea that Ruby was neither gender, so long as they could still kick the can and pass the ball around. Whilst on the other hand, many an adult had told little Ruby that they were confused or that it was merely a phase that would soon pass over, which Ruby didn't much appreciate at all. Now it came to be that when Ruby's parents found out that they had neither son nor daughter but a child, they were beyond furious. As both of them coped with the guilt and notion that they had failed as parents, Ruby went on, blissfully ignoring their traumatized parents. Yet, it came to pass that Ruby could no longer go on ignoring their parents forever and their parents could not go on not "dealing" with the "deviancy of their daughter".