A Prophecy in a Gray World

The boys headed outside, and Argius suggested that they collect the pony’s droppings and spread them among the plants. They went to the little shed where Brewster the pony lived and gathered more droppings, which they put in buckets and carried to the garden. Using trowels they spread the droppings about, commenting about how smelly the work was and acknowledging that they would need more. As they worked, they chattered away like a couple of magpies.

“Does your father ask where you go when you’re not with him?” asked Jarren.

“Not yet,” replied Argius, “and I have no idea how I’ll answer him when he does.”
By the time they finished, they both stank. “I need to get cleaned off before I go home or my father will ask me what I’ve been doing,” said Argius.

There was a pond on the property, but Grandfather said that it was badly polluted, so Jarren took his friend back into the house and into a bathroom with a shower.

Thinking nothing of it, he stripped off his shorts and looked expectantly at Argius, who was looking at him. And it wasn’t Jarren’s face that Argius was examining.

“Are you going to shower in your shorts?” Jarren asked with a little giggle.

Argius’s face grew hot, but he slowly removed his shorts and tossed them on the floor. Jarren nodded and the boys climbed into the shower together. They washed slowly, cleansing as much of their bodies as they could reach. Then they soaped each other’s backs. When they were facing each other, they discovered that their cocks were equally hard. They both giggled before they climbed out of the shower and toweled themselves off. Jarren loaned Argius a pair of his shorts to replace his friend’s smelly ones, and then they went to the kitchen to get a drink. As they sat drinking quietly, Argius asked, “Why are we doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Working with the plants. What good will it do us?”

Jarren thought a minute before saying, “I think that’s what Argius the First was talking about when he wrote that humans grew greedy. He thought they were always looking for things that would benefit them, not thinking about anyone or anything else. And what he said still applies, I think.”

They both reflected on that thought for a while before Argius said, “But even if we are doing what Argius the First wanted, there’s no way we can change the world. It’s wasted effort.”

“Maybe,” said Jarren. “Maybe not. At the very least the garden will look and grow better.”

As night began to fall, Argius said, “I need to get home. Can I come back tomorrow?”

“Sure,” replied Jarren, thinking to himself that he’d really enjoyed having a boy his own age working with him. He’d especially enjoyed their time in the shower together and the feeling of Argius’s hands on his back.

When Jarren awoke in the morning it was raining, that nice gentle rain which soaked into the ground without flooding anything.

As he ate his breakfast, Jarren told Grandfather what he’d been doing. Grandfather smiled and nodded, saying that perhaps Jarren wouldn’t change the world, but he certainly wouldn’t hurt it.

Jarren spent the day reading. He hoped Argius would appear, but he didn’t. That night he lay in bed remembering the touch of Argius’s hand on his back. His cock began to grow hard, and he reached down, gently stroking it and enjoying the feeling.

The next morning the sun returned, and when Jarren went outside, Argius was already there, working in a part of the garden which they hadn’t touched yet. They worked in companionable silence until Jarren’s stomach rumbled, reminding him it was time for lunch.

He and Argius went into the house and washed their hands thoroughly before Jarren fixed some sandwiches.

Returning to the garden after lunch, Argius noticed something. Near the door there was a rose bush, and he saw that there was just the faintest tinge of color on the flowers. He didn’t know what it was of course, but he pointed it out to Jarren, who likewise didn’t know what it was but thought it odd.

They worked through the afternoon until the white, warm sun began to set. Returning to the house, they stripped off their shorts and showered together. When they had washed each other’s backs, Jarren reached around Argius and began lathering his friend’s cock. Argius turned and did the same for Jarren. In time, they felt a tension growing in their groins and they both spurted out white, sticky fluid.

“What’s that?” asked Argius.

“I’ve no idea,” replied Jarren, “but after supper I’ll try to find out.”

Waving his friend goodbye, Jarren helped Grandfather prepare a simple supper as usual. He had no secrets from Grandfather, and he was curious about the white, sticky fluid, so he asked about it. Grandfather smiled and after supper took him into the library where he found a couple of books for the boy. One was titled Boys and Sex, and the other was A Boy’s Guide to Sex. He sat in his favorite chair and opened the guide. He had heard of sex, but he had never thought that it applied to him. He didn’t really like the guide. It was full of cartoons which meant to be cute but weren’t. So, he took the other book, which had no cartoons but some interesting diagrams. He read and he read. He finished the entire book and went back to some parts he wanted to read again. He read about ejaculation and what the white fluid was. He read that it was a sign of a boy’s body maturing and was completely natural. As he read, he felt his cock growing hard and he wanted to touch it, but he didn’t because Grandfather was right there.

In bed that night, he again thought about Argius’s hand, first on his back and then on his cock, which he learned was termed a penis. Again, he held it in his hand and began stroking, and soon his penis was throbbing in the most delicious way and ejaculating the white fluid, which he had learned contained millions of sperm.

In the morning when Jarren went out to the garden, he saw some other flowers with faint tints of pink and yellow. He found the pastel colors delightful. He still didn’t know what was happening but then it occurred to him that perhaps what he was seeing was colors.

When Argius arrived, Jarren showed him the delicate pastel colors of some of the flowers and they speculated over what the changes meant.

Later over lunch, Jarren showed Boys and Sex to Argius, who was not interested at first. As he read, however, he became engrossed.

That afternoon as they worked in the garden spreading more of Brewster’s contributions, they talked about the book. It had told them a lot, but when it talked about mating, it only mentioned love between a man and a woman, never between two boys or two men. As they talked and examined the book, each boy secretly wondered if two boys could love each other.

As usual, they went to the shower to clean off and enjoyed the pleasure of each other’s touches.

The next morning, as Jarren was finishing the breakfast dishes, he heard Argius call him. Going out to the garden he saw that there was more change. The plants were no longer black or gray or white. The colors, pink, yellow, blue, and a lot of green, had become more intense. Of course the boys didn’t know the names of the colors, but they believed they knew what was happening. The question was why?

They returned to work with renewed vigor. Over the next few days as they continued to work, the colors grew increasingly intense and delightful, but the changes weren’t only in the flowers.

They continued their late-afternoon showers, becoming aware of changes in each other. Although the boys couldn’t name the changes, Argius’s skin became the color of honey. His eyes were flashing blue with little gold flecks and his hair was black. Jarren’s skin was the color of chestnuts, while his eyes were an enchanting green and his hair was yellow.

Through the following days, their fondling turned more serious. It was accompanied by much kissing, which they both found loving and exciting. There came a time when standing in the shower wasn’t enough and after they had dried themselves off, they retired to Jarren’s bed.

Grandfather, who never seemed to go out to the garden, nevertheless went at Jarren’s urging. He was amazed. There were the colors Argius the First had talked about generations earlier. The odd thing was that the colors were only on his property. Everything else was still black or gray or white. The sky above the garden was blue but elsewhere it was gray.

Soon, word passed among the neighbors, and they came to see the colors.

At last one day, Argius’s father asked him where he had been going every day. Argius tried to tell him about the garden, but as soon as he mentioned being with another boy, his father grew furious and forbade him from returning to his friend.

“Why?” asked Argius, tears streaming down his face.

At that point, his mother intervened. She suggested to Arguis’s father that, before he took that step, perhaps they should at least meet Argius’s friend and see what they had been doing.

As the family entered Grandfather’s property, their skin became the color of honey and their eyes became bright blue with flecks of gold. Argius’s family looked at each other in amazement. After a few moments his father, gesturing at the colorful flowers, asked, “How did all this happen? Is it magic?”

Jarren ran across the garden to greet his friend with a big hug. Then the boys told him what they had been doing, and Jarren said, “I think if you love the world enough, maybe the world will love you back.”

Argius’s father decided that perhaps Argius the First had been wrong and not all humans were greedy. He and his family slowly began to make contact with others nearby.

Grandfather invited Argius’s family to supper one night. It was a merry affair as everyone seemed to talk at once. Arguis’s younger siblings were enthralled by the garden and, since the first changes, colors had also appeared in the house, especially in the library, where books were suddenly red or blue or green or brown.

Jarren had found an old book about love between boys. He read about ancient Greece and Rome, and the stories of men who loved each other even when their society frowned on such love. He read too about tribes which considered such lovers special, and suddenly everything made sense to him. Surreptitiously he loaned the book to Argius, who agreed that was what they were experiencing and that it appeared to be normal.

As neighbors came to the garden and asked how the boys had achieved their results, other gardens and plots of land began to show signs of color. Soon the entire area, as far as anyone could travel, was full of color, and Jarren realized that while he couldn’t change the whole world by himself, as others copied his example his love for the world spread.

At Grandfather’s invitation, Argius began spending nights with Jarren. On those nights, as they cuddled in bed, they kissed and stroked one another until their penises were hard. That usually happened quite quickly, and the boys learned how to prolong their sensations. The boys grew to young men and their love grew apace. Argius moved in with Jarren, not even trying to hide the love he felt. At first, his father was not happy but his mother managed to convince him that, so long as the boys loved each other and were kind, that was all they could ask.

In time, Grandfather died, and the boys buried him in a special place in the garden, covering his grave with brilliant flowers. There was a very gentle rain that day, and first they were a little sad the day hadn’t been brighter. Then Jarren looked up and gasped. Argius followed his gaze and they stared into the sky at a vibrant double rainbow.

They always welcomed visitors to their garden, telling them about Argius the First’s prophecy and how the visitors could also achieve the bright colors.

Were they able to rid the world of greedy people? Of course not, but they were able to help many people recognize their own selfishness and work against it. Thanks to the prophecy and the boys, their world became a better, happier, much more colorful place.