Writing Prompt Wednesday! The Bubble Burst

[Writing Prompt] In a world where the 1st thing you touch becomes your skillset, you were born and raised in a bubble; today the bubble pops.

A blood curdling scream pierced the air and my eardrum. On instinct, I jumped up from my chair and hobbled as fast as my aching legs would let me. Even in my rush, I still grabbed my cane. As I flung open my front door, I instantly spotted the root cause of the noise. There on my stoop was a young boy crying and carrying on. “Are you okay?” I asked, concerned. I quickly looked him all over, expecting to see blood gushing by the way he was acting. I saw none. “NO, LOOK!” His hands were covered in wet grass clippings. And so was the rest of him. The grass stuck to him all over. It was easy to see with the simple white clothes he was wearing. Everything made sense now. His white clothes denoted that he was initiated into this world by the Bubble Burst. The Bubble Burst was a very important day for all young people to find their skillset by touching the first thing ever outside of the bubble that they previously had lived in. Unfortunately for this boy, the first thing he touched was grass. “I had been looking forward to this day when my bubble burst! And then I slipped and I caught myself with my hands!” He tearfully looked at his grassy hands as if they had betrayed him. “What is grass going to do? I’m ruined before I even started!” he wailed. “Okay, now hold on a moment,” I said in an effort to calm him down. “You don’t know that for certain.” I ushered him into my humble house and motioned him to sit by the fire to warm him and dry his clothes. . While we sat on the hearth, I began telling the boy about others who touched something for the first time. “Someone touched rocks and became a geologist. Another person liked that skillset and tried to mimic him. But he became a miner instead.” “Wow, what a difference! And it was the same rock?” He momentarily forgot his own problems and started becoming interested. “Oh, yes. The skillset is a tricky kind. You can’t completely predict what the skillset will be just based on the item. Fire, for example.” I pointed to the flames next to us. “One person touched fire and became a firefighter. Another also touched fire and became a welder. You can’t really know for sure.” I smiled warmly at the boy. “So you could be a gardener, a landscaper, you don’t know yet. The skillset will reveal itself to you.” The boy again looked at his hands. He turned them this way and that, seeing them in a new light. Then, he turned to me. “What about you? What did you touch?” Sighing, I tapped my cane on the ground. “A cane.”