Lataio wakes up early, and there's no way to deny the morning's arrival. The birds sing deeply, sunlight pours through the window, and the fresh air carries the scent of seasonal flowers—there are always flowers in season. His bed transforms into part of the wall, lifting him upright as he rises. His clothes, made of Quantum-shifting particles dissolve, and from the floor emerges the purest water, with mermaids playing with little ducks. His mother had warned him that he was too young to imagine the mermaids, but today was his birthday. "At 12, I’m old enough to imagine whatever I want," he thought confidently as they smiled intensely at him, the yellow ducks now trying to escape through the window. The mermaids, tails splashing, chased them as water flooded the room, turning it into a vast lake. The walls transformed into trees, and from the ceiling, a waterfall began to cascade, growing taller, almost too tall for his comfort. And with that, everything stopped.
The room returned to normal. Lataio was now dressed in pink and blue. The dominant colors, blue and green, always had to be present in everything to represent the two elements that divided the planet: water and earth.
"Why pink?" his mother asked, watching him from the kitchen that had extended itself before him in an instant. She didn’t need to call him; she simply brought the room to her, leaving Lataio standing before the table.
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“One of the mermaids…” He stopped himself immediately, not wanting to reveal the mermaids had been in the bath-lake.
“Don’t worry about that. Today, you turn 12, and I couldn’t stop it, nor would I want to. I just tried to make sure it wasn’t too soon. You show that you know what you want. And besides, the pink shirt looks good on you; it matches the hair you chose for today—this irreve...”
She couldn’t finish the word. She wanted to say “irreverence,” but couldn’t. Lataio looked at her, waiting for the word to be completed, but suddenly found himself facing a plate of food—“special for your birthday.” He tried to identify what made it special since every day the food was special: a perfect combination of all flowers, vegetables, eggs, and meats, containing the proteins from every plant that existed.
“Look closely at all the details,” she said, as he leaned in towards the plate, realizing, “Yes, there it was, his favorite food—two tiny spoonfuls of honey. Such small portions.”
“The bees left that for you. They want you to feel special too,” his mother said.
And Lataio, honored, thought, “The bees did this for me. I must be special.”