Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Une Err






“But these are my friends!” he cursed.

“I know them better than anyone else!”

“Jimmy just sit down now. Calm down, please.”

“No! I won’t do it! You can’t tell me how to live my life!”

“I want to get away. I want out of this place around you stupid people!”

“Now don’t be silly,” she said.

“You’re being very, very silly.”

By the time they could settle him down he was already done for. His wispy hair was wet with sweat and tears, fixed against his forehead that still had a few beads on the surface.

His mother had yet to arrive, but the lady was already weeping for him. Her blouse was speckled with droplets that revealed her pale skin underneath the silken fabric. She looked at peace, more so than him, as she stroked his hair to the side to reveal his face. His eyelids remained shut, curling upward ever so slightly where they shut close. He had eyelashes prettier than hers, but this was the first time she had noticed.

Minutes passed without a word nor a commotion. The two of them, her knees on the floor, his knees in the air, remained closer together than seconds before. It is what he wanted but he couldn’t say it. He had said the other thing to her. He had told her he knew about them.

Who was “them?” What was this “thing?”

They were foolish questions the committee decided five months after the incident. By then his mother had arrived, wept and left. She was nothing now but a soulless woman without a source of happiness. Each day her friends would tell her she’d be okay. She even told herself she was okay. But they weren’t really her friends. She didn’t even know them. But little did she know – or didn’t know – what Jimmy had meant to say before he left.

No comments: