simple.
That was what Jayson kept telling himself as the days passed.
The road to school was the same narrow path of dirt and stones, lined with fences that leaned like tired old men. The houses still smelled of smoke and morning rice. The sky was still above him, wide and quiet. If he focused hard enough, everything could stay the way it was.
But the world had started to speak.
At school, the children played again, yet something was different. They didn't run as freely. Their laughter came in short bursts, like it needed permission. When Jayson asked why the field was empty, no one answered him directly.
"They said we're not allowed there anymore," one boy muttered.
"Who said?" Jayson asked.
The boy shrugged. "Them."
Them.
It was a word Jayson had never needed before. A word without a face, without a shape, yet heavy enough to change where children could play.
On his way home, Jayson noticed things he had never noticed before.
Men standing at corners, arms crossed, eyes scanning the road. A truck passing by slowly, its engine loud, its presence louder. A faded sign nailed to a post, filled with words he couldn't read yet, but somehow felt important.
He asked his mother about it.
"That's for grown-ups," she said, not unkindly.
"But I'll grow up," Jayson replied.
She looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. "Yes," she said softly. "You will."
That night, his uncle visited.
The adults talked in low voices, sitting close together, as if distance itself was dangerous. Jayson stayed in the corner, pretending to play with a piece of string, listening without understanding. Words floated past him—work, money, orders, tomorrow.
The world, he realized, had layers.
There was the world of children, where games mattered and wounds healed fast. And there was another world, one that moved quietly, making decisions without asking those below it.
Jayson lay down later than usual, his mind busy.
He still didn't know what any of it meant. He didn't know who them were, or why adults suddenly looked older than they had a week ago. But something inside him had shifted.
The world was no longer just the place where he played.
It was something larger.
Something watching back.
Something waiting to be understood.
The world.