Angel
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Um...don't know....Mary Had A Little Lamb????
Topic: Writings
A single tear falls from his eye. He remembers his father’s words, “Boys don’t cry,” and quickly wipes it away. The jeering words burned his ears as if they’d been ignited by some invisible match. He runs from the school and down the street. His large sneakers flap loudly on the hard pavement and although they are gone, the words still bounce about angrily in his head.
“Loser.”
“Dork.”
“Have you ever washed your clothes?”
“Go away.”
“Ugly.”
Finally, he can take it no longer and collapses on the grass, the last crunchy bits of snow soaking into his thin layers of clothes. The tears make his face wetter than his body, and there are too many to wipe away. He lays there, shaking and trembling from the cold, until a hand on his shoulder causes him to jump up in shock.
“Are you all right?” the old man’s voice shocks him. He had expected it to be a classmate, getting ready for round two.
The man removes his jacket from his small, bony shoulders and gently places it around the boy’s. He smiles softly at him with a tired face.
“Come.”
He doesn’t know what he’s doing, but the boy follows with numb legs. The man leads him down snow-covered paths into the deepest wood. Out of the distance, a small house seems to welcome them, warm and inviting, smoke curling from the chimney.
He lets himself be led into the comforting structure and sits down on a couch near the door. Looking around, there are pictures of a young, homely boy in a school uniform, a handsome young man in a suit, a beautiful family. He sips the tea the man gives him, and shivers. The man smiles again and gestures to the wall.
“That’s me.”
“All of the them?” the boy is incredulous at the homely boy who’d grown into such a success.
“Yes. I was teased, too,” the man slowly, painfully sits down on the couch next to the boy.
“How did you-” he begins to spectacle at the man’s seemingly wide knowledge.
“I went to college, became a successful medical doctor, married a wonderful woman, and had children,” the man said, avoiding the boy’s question. He closes his eyes slowly, peacefully.
The sit in silence for a few moments, until the man looks the boy straight in the eye and says, “There is nothing you can do but wait. Just think of what you can be, instead of what you are not.” With that, he takes the boy’s empty teacup and simultaneously they stand up. The old man says he will take the boy home.
The walk on the silent, cold street and finally come upon the boy’s house. A police car sits quietly waiting on the corner. The boy walks up to his front door, the old man’s hand resting supportively on his shoulder. His mother opens the door with vigor, and pulls him into her arms, questioning where he was. He turns around, starting to introduce the old man to his mother.
The old man is gone and the street is empty.

THE END