"Be careful—" his father said.

Were they in a green maze, surrounded by fragrant, dark soil and living things? Or at the top of a tower in the sun (hearing but not hearing the surf far below, a sound as familiar as their own breathing)? Maybe they were sitting at the kitchen table, a half-eaten meal between them (breakfast? dinner?), speaking of inconsequential, life-changing things.

(The first choice leads to fame, and the third leads to death; but the second opens on a day of endless summer.)

He didn't listen to his father, as he hadn't paid attention to the verdant hedges that surrounded them, or looked down at the sea that hemmed them in, or noticed that there was too much salt in the potatoes. These small details are like bonds that hold him down, a kite string that reins him in endlessly. His mistake is believing his father holds the end of the string, when his father is merely a symbol: of his fear, of his arrogance, of his future.

(Look up: there is the sun, between the arching branches of the maze, in the cloudless sky over the island, somewhere beyond the ceiling of the kitchen. Look down: humus and mulch, warm stone, cold linoleum. Bend just so to take flight; the wind will catch and carry you, if you are strong enough to ride it.)

Because he is young, he fears inaction more than annihilation, so he strikes out through the empty air, the sun burning down on him, the maze whispering softly, freedom close enough to touch. The turbulence is sudden and shocking, the dissolution abrupt and complete. In an instant he learns that to be careless is to lose oneself, perhaps irredeemably. For him this is the final lesson.

(The world coming apart around him; the maze narrowing and catching him; the thick, unbreathable words betraying him. The universe is melting wax and a flurry of feathers.)

He is gone, but the maze stays green; the surf still mutters and sighs; the too-salty potatoes grow cold in the pan. A man who was once a father flies on alone under an empty sky.