Tobias

    So now, my story.

    I had always been blamed for her disappearance. Everyone said that if I had never been born, if I didn't look so much like my father, she never would have left. I don't know if they were right to tell me that, but to this day I have believed every word of it. If I hadn't been the reason, she surely would have come back for me. If she was alive that is.

    I sat in class and doodled in the margins of my notebook paper. I was supposed to be copying the ABC's in cursive, but I was too content on my drawing of a spaceship to care. Third grade was the most boring grade so far. Cursive, who needs cursive anyway? What's wrong with regular old print?

    "Now class, remember that you will be using cursive from now on, " Ms. Anderson said. "It will be required on all of your tests so I suggest you learn it."

    I wondered for a moment what the word required meant. Then, dismissing it for, yet another unexplained adult term, I resumed my doodling. If we would be using cursive from now on, why didn't they just teach us that in the first place? Why bother with print if you are only going to use it until the third grade? Teachers could be so difficult sometimes. After about five minutes, Ms. Anderson moved on to multiplication. I hated math. When would we ever have to use multiplication anyway? Five times four, five plus four-what's the difference? To a third grader, things like this don't matter. After another agonizing half-hour of schoolwork it was finally lunchtime.

    Ms. Anderson called for the class to line up boy-girl-boy-girl. The boys in the class voiced their protest, but
reluctantly subdued themselves to the teacher's whim. I was standing near the end of the line between Candice
Thompson and Michelle Stafford, two girls who both loved to chase boys at recess. The little terrorists. I had learned long ago never to be fooled by a pretty red bow. Girls were dangerous.

    Lunchtime went by as usual; stand in the line, pick up a tray, get your food, pay at the counter. I found a seat at the end of a table and tried to eat my lunch. I managed to choke down a few bites of crusty macaroni and cheese before I diminished the idea of finishing lunch. At recess nothing unusual happened. I walked by myself along the fence until the teacher called us back into class. After recess it was time to go.

    I waited inside the classroom for the intercom to announce for bike riders and walkers to go home, picked up my backpack and exited the building. I ambled down the sidewalk, heading for home. Dreading every step that brought me closer to the hellhole that was my Uncle's house. But my feet betrayed me and I soon found myself at the front doorstep.

    As soon as I entered the house I was assaulted with screams of rage from my Uncle.

    "Where the hell have you been, boy? Stop making so much Goddamn noise! Can't a man get any sleep around here without having to listen to you slamming the damn doors all day? I ought to kill you for waking me up!" He threw and empty beer can in my direction. It went wide. I ignored him and trudged up the steps to my room, shutting the door on his drunken screams.

    I walked over to the other side of my bed and pulled out my toys. I had four dinosaur toys, a stegosaurus, a
triceratops, a brontosaurus, and a T-Rex. I also pulled out my dinosaur book to read. Flipping through the familiar pages, I recited along with the book each fact and detail about all of the dinosaurs it held within. Kronosaurus, Dinonychus, Triceratops, Terrannasaourus Rex, Brotosouras, Spinosouras, Stegosaurus, Pterradon...they were all there. I knew what they were and when they existed, most in the Cretaceous, the age of plants, and many in Jurassic, the age of life.

    I played dinosaur until the screams of rage died out and the night was silent.

    I managed to dodge the first few blows, but the rest hit me squarely, knocking my ten-year-old body to the floor. Blood poured from my broken nose as I tried to crawl away from him. But he came again, kicking me in the stomach with a booted foot. I used the couch to stand up, but not for long. I went down again as he swung a fist and cuffed me across the face, splitting my lip. I watched, frozen in horror, as he reached for a broken beer bottle. He advanced, eyes glassy with alcohol induced rage, I squeezed my eyes shut against the impending pain. The sharp glass was jabbed into me. It punctured the skin and he pushed it deep past the chords of muscle, cracking the cartilage and bones in my ribcage as it cut a jagged gash down my chest. Warm blood gushed from the ravaged flesh, covering my torso and the large callused hands of my uncle. Unconsciousness shrouded me like a thick black cloak.

    When I woke there was noise all around me. Faces I didn't know. Words I didn’t understand. The
beeps and blips and screeches of machinery were like a distant dream, all relative to the pain that pulled me back to wakefulness. My eyes were blurry and unfocused. Someone said, "He's coming to, turn up the gas."

    Gas, I thought. Car gas? I didn't understand, but suddenly everything was gone.

    I was flying high above everything, above houses and buildings and trees and swimming pools. My arms were opened wide as I drank in the wind and sky. The sky was beautiful, a pandemonium of colors as if someone had just spilled water over a paint box. Swirls of red and gold and purple wove colorful patterns and intertwined with each other. Threads of blue, green and orange seemed to sew the sky together, forming a quilt that had been pulled over the world. The setting sun was like a brilliant golden discus in the sky behind me, bathing the world in its warm glow as it sunk into the horizon.

    I was flying towards the portion of the sky where the colors faded gently into night. Then the landscape was
enveloped in the black cloak of midnight, softened by starlight and the silvery moon-glow that left a path in the sea. On the beach by the sea, like shining topaz jewels were torches lit around a pavilion. There were people in costumes; rainbow colored robes and gowns that billowed as they danced joyously. Bright masks, lit in a fiery glow by the torches and a blazing campfire, covered their faces. Their laughter rang and echoed melodiously like music.

    The laughter melted and changed, morphed almost, into a single voice. A voice that held all of the beauty of laughter, a voice that sang from the heart, a girl’s voice. I flew down the length of the dark beach, the sea to my right and a looming cliff face to my left, until I found the holder of the voice. She was sitting on a bolder, swathed in moonlight, under an outcropping of rock.

    She was about fourteen, and the most magnificent creature I had ever seen. Her long blonde hair flowed down her back like a cape of pure golden silk, large blue eyes were set in a frame of thick black lashes in her softly featured face. The moonlight seemed to condense and radiate around her like Inner Light, like a halo. Yes, a halo, she was an angel. I was sure of it. Only an angel could be this beautiful and have that gorgeous a voice. The song she sang seemed distantly familiar, like something I had heard before, a long time ago.

    As she lights the candle

    And the breeze flies by

    The flame stands unwavered

    Because her love's inside

    With the sound of the rain

    She sings a lullaby

    And leans over him

    To kiss her son goodnight

    Goodnight my love

    Goodnight and goodbye

    I won't be with you

    But I'll be by your side

    Forever I'm near you

    But when I'm gone

    Remember me and

    You won't be alone

    Goodnight my love

    Goodnight and goodbye

    I won't be with you

    But I'll be by your side

    Dear, someday I swear

    Someone else will be there

    She'll give you all the love you need

    And you won't remember me

    I hadn't realized that I had stopped flying until she ended her song. I was transfixed, as if hypnotized by her. I
had landed in the sand directly in front of her. She smiled and leaned forward, and then she kissed my forehead. I wondered, briefly, if angels were allowed to do that, then dismissed the thought. I closed my eyes.

    They snapped open.

    Where was I? This is not where I had been. I was now in a room that was totally white. It smelled like a...a...hospital room. Wait, it was a hospital room. That's where I was. Had it all been a dream, then? Had the wonderfully colored sky and garish costumed people been real? What about the angel girl, had she also been a dream?

    She had felt so real. Warm and gentle, within her touch was love-something that I had never experienced. So that was it. The only time I would be loved was in a dream. I suddenly had a premonition and looked around my room for the angel girl. If she was real, if she really had loved me, she would be here. She wasn't. Why would she be? I was so stupid, how could I think anyone could ever love me? I had been told all my life that I wasn't and would never be loved. There had always been this little glimmer of hope that I kept locked up tight within myself that maybe someday someone would love me. But I was wrong. The glimmer extinguished like a dousing of water over a candle flame.

    I looked at my hands, how could anyone ever love me? I wasn't worth loving. In fact I wasn't worth
anything. I had been told this, why hadn't I listened? I had to wait to get hurt before I could make myself believe what I had known all along. No love for you, Tobias. Not now, not ever.

    Worthless, that's what I was. I squeezed my eyes shut to the tears that were welling behind the lids. I felt the
lump in my throat rise and throb. And as I drew in a ragged breath, I could not hold back the choked sobs that racked my body.

    I woke later that night to the sound of rain against my window. There was no beauty in the sky tonight, nothing to see except the ghostly glow of the moon behind a thick shroud of gray rain clouds. I turned my face away from the offensive scene and tried to think about other things, only to find my mind full and empty at the same time.

    Sighing, and trying not to feel too depressed, I tried to sit up. Spots flashed before my eyes and I found myself
unable to stay upright. I slumped back against the pillow; my hopes of not feeling depressed gone. Looking down at myself for the first time, I was instantaneously fascinated. I had a huge gauze pad covering a large portion of my chest, held there by a bandage wrapped around my ribcage. There was also a strange clear tube protruding from my wrist, like an artificial vain. It dripped liquid down from what looked like one of those goldfish bags you'd get at the fair, the bag was hanging from a metal stand. Around my other wrist was a bracelet of sorts; it said my name and a bunch of numbers that, to me, had no meaning. I did, however, recognize my birthday. I was getting ready to take it off (bracelets were for girls), but a nurse took that moment to walk into the room.

    "Hello, Tobias." Her rich voice filled the room, "I hope your feeling better, my name is Nurse Beaton. I'll be checking in on you until you go home." She sat down in a chair next to me, a faint smell of roses wafting from her shoulder-length brown hair. She was a plump woman, probably in her thirties, short, and pretty. I liked her
immediately.

    Sure enough, for the next week or so, Nurse Beaton came to check on me. There was another nurse who came in to take my blood pressure, and another who brought me meals, but I liked Nurse Beaton the best. She told me jokes and held my hand when they drew blood. But all too soon, a week after I had been admitted to the hospital, I was released back to my Uncle.

    I would go back to the hospital three more times that year. Finally I was sent back to my Aunt who now lived in
Rightsville.

    Middle school sucked. As I've said I have always been a loner, but being a loner in middle school is not a
good thing to be. I've never been good at making friends, but never have I been so good at making enemies.
When you're a loner, everyone picks on you simply because you have no one to stand up for you, no one to
back you up. I always had something going on in my head; I guess that made me weird. It wasn't like I walked
around looking like I was plotting something, I was not that intense, but there were times when I considered
demolishing the school. I got called all sorts of names; book-boy, wimp, Toby-Wan Kenobi (which I didn't
mind as much), but bastard was the worst. It was true I guess, in literal meaning at least. But the name hurt because it mocked my inner struggle and made the absence in my heart for a family even more profound. The names and teasing hacked away at the barriers I had created like a hurricane against a sandy shore. Every name, every insult, was etched forever in the weakening barricade, threatening to burn through.

    I couldn't tell any teachers; it would most likely impel my tormenters to persist and strengthen their egos to
know they were getting somewhere with me. I would never give them that satisfaction. The administration never
intervened, so I just put up with it. In fact, there were a few teachers who seemed to be against me. I was with one of those teachers in class today.

    Wanda Stancely was my Language Arts teacher and worst nightmare. She was short and fat with dishwater brown hair that she curled and teased into some semblance of a bird's nest on her head. Although she seemed
pleasant at first, the smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, doubling the crow's feet, was deceitful. She
could talk for half the period in her whiney-voiced southern draw, explaining our assignment or just blathering on
about anything and everything, and afterwards I would have no clue what the heck it was she had just said. She
never failed to assign us thirty problems of homework a night on the most boring literature I have ever read.
Don't get me wrong, I love to read, but I still can't figure out how anyone could come up with
seventeen questions on a poem about mushrooms. Or how anyone could write a poem about mushrooms for that matter.

    The book we had just finished, The Diary of Anne Frank, was a lot better than most of the stories we had read this year, probably because it was required for the seventh grade. Unfortunately she came up with a way to make even a good story torture. I tried to tune in to the class discussion.

    "So what I'm asking you to do is write your own journal entry on the diary of Anne Frank of what you think
Anne would have written. But write it in your own words. It doesn't matter what perspective you put it in, just
as long as it is in the first person. Remember the first person in where the narrator is speaking, or writing in this
situation. You talk in the first person, although when you are addressing someone it is in the second person.
I'm speaking to you in the second person. Those chose-your-own adventure stories that y'all seem to be so interested in are second person too. Now this isn't hard, all I'm asking you to do is write, in your own words in any perspective, what you would have written in Anne's Diary had you been in her situation now back then. Now take in mind that Anne was a free spirited individual with ideals and her own views on life, now you may not be but that's okay, just write what you would have done in her situation in your own words in any perspective in first person. But remember to make it what you think she would have written." Mrs. Stancely said, extravagant gestures rippled the sleeves of her oversized floral dress as she waddled around the front of the class. Corey Plat, the guy sitting in front of me, was napping, what seemed to be a pretty good idea at the time. I tried not to giggle as he opened and shut his mouth as if he were trying to speak; he looked like a fish.

    "Tobias," Mrs. Stancely said. "Why don't you tell us what you think Anne would have written, what she would have said that you said, in your words in any perspective in second, excuse me, I mean first person, if you
were in her situation now back then."

    Talk about first sentence giveth second sentence taketh away. That really didn't register.

    I felt my face grow hot as everyone turned to look at me. I did a perfect impression of Corey by opening and shutting my mouth a few times. "Uh, well...um...I," I tried to think, my mind reeling. Mrs. Stancely looked impatiently at me and said with a smirk, "Not paying attention, Tobias?" She asked. I took on a defensive tone, "I was paying attention, I just, well I don't understand."

    "Why not, I explained it several times."

    "I...I," I cast about the room for help. A few students were giggling at me, a few had piteous expressions, but I found no help. Mrs. Stancely mimicked me, "I...I...I...come on Tobias. Can't you think of anything?"

"I...um, well I...uhh."

    "What's the matter Tobias? If you're having trouble answering this extremely apparent question, perhaps you should be back in sixth grade Language Arts. You have been doing very poorly in this class, Tobias. If you're too stupid to understand what I'm asking maybe you should take a walk back over to the elementary school." I could not stand the torture any longer. I had taken this from her for an entire year and I would not take it anymore.

    I stood suddenly, knocking my chair over, and yelled with all of my contained emotion, "Dear Kitty, I'm a
freaking queer!"

    The class burst into a riot of laughter and Mrs. Stancely stood aghast and speechless, for once. She began to yell at me, but I couldn't make out her words over the din of laughter from my classmates. As soon as she had
regained her composure, she marched her regal paunch down the isle of desks and took me roughly by the arm. She hauled me down the hall to the principal's office, wheezing and puffing from exertion and trembling with anger. My face was burned with ire and my lips were set in a snarl. She shoved me unceremoniously into one of the green waiting chairs outside Principal Cooper's office. Without knocking, she proceeded in, slamming the door behind her so hard it rattled the panes.

    I could hear her ranting and raving to Principal Cooper, her voice high and shrill, pouring her country accent on thickly. I caught small bits of their conversation-mostly words like perfidious, unwarrantable, infinitesimal, malicious, rancorously inappropriate, improdigious and intolerable along with several more I could not understand and many I can not repeat. Finally the door opened and I was ushered in. Mr. Cooper, a gaunt man with a lantern jaw and thinning red hair, looked at me with his sunken blue eyes. Mrs. Stancely scrutinized me shrewdly.

    Mr. Cooper gestured for me to sit down. I did and pressed back against the seat, trying to disappear. I had never been in trouble before and I was more than a little afraid. The results of our interrogative conversation were not favorable, at least on my behalf. I had detention for a week and three generals. A general is where you sit for half an hour with your hands on your desk. You can't move around or talk or sleep or do schoolwork. You just sit there. No one in my class talked to me that week, which was not much of a change, but every so often someone would look at me and start cracking up. That was the last time I ever lashed out in my own defense for a long, long time.

    I tucked my lunch inside my jacket, under my arm. Yesterday someone had snatched it right out of my hand. I walked as inconspicuously as possible to the corner of the cafeteria, head down, shoulders hunched, and hands in pockets. I scooted between the table and wall, tripping clumsily over feet which I hadn't yet grown into, and fell against the table. My lunch dropped from my arm as well as my binder, which in my hasty exit from mechanical drawing I hadn't had time to close. Papers spilled from my notebook and slid beneath the table. I tried to crouch and pick them up, but found that I couldn't fit in the narrow alley between the table and painted cinderblock wall. I tried turning sideways in the eight-inch avenue but that didn't work either.

    I felt eyes on me, but I wasn't going to look up to confirm it. I sat backwards in one of the chairs and bent
over sideways, leaning down until my shoulder hit the seat next to me and I could go no lower. The tips of my fingers grasped a few papers so I set them on the chair and reached back down for more. I managed to get a good hold on my binder, but unfortunately it was the back end. All of the remaining papers came loose and fluttered to the ground, sliding beneath the table.

    The few kids began to giggle at me as I tried to reach the papers underneath the table. I turned my head  sideways and peered below the lip, a fringe of brown hair tickling my nose as it fell across my face. But I  couldn't reach any more of my papers.

    I felt a knee jab lightly in my ribs and looked up. Leaning over me was a girl I had seen around but never really talked to.

    Carlie Lepkin was not the most popular girl in school; in fact she was probably the least. She had a reputation of a sharp tongue and an even sharper attitude. People both hated and feared her, but I couldn't see what was so repelling about her, at least in appearance. Frizzy strawberry hair framed a round pale face and her sunken brown eyes were dark and empty of emotion. Her high, arched eyebrows were a light sienna color and she wore no makeup. She was about five foot four and had a slight frame. The knee that had poked me was sheathed in worn and run black panty hose; she wore only black. Each of her fingers had a different silver ring on it, and a Celtic knot hung on a silver chain that rested on her sternum.

    She raised an eyebrow at me and asked, "Need a hand?" I wondered if it was a joke. I studied her again but her face showed no sign of fraud. I was being too cynical. She raised her other eyebrow and leaned forward, evoking an answer from me. I realized I was staring, and looked away, blushing.

    "Um, yeah, sure."

    She set her books down on the tabletop and dropped to her knees beside me, easily fitting in the narrow walkway. She pushed her hair behind her shoulders and I notice her ears were pierced several times, not particularly attractive but rather intriguing. She seemed to have a blunt-edged personality but that in a way was welcome.

    And that's when I met Carlie.

    "I'm thinking along the lines of nuclear annihilation, or maybe something a little milder. Like arson. Yeah, we
could coat the whole school in gasoline and torch the place." Carlie rambled on as I twisted a french-fry between my fingers, watching the grease well up and coat my thumbs before it broke in two. "But why not do something creative like greasing the halls with pig fat, spraying vodka on the carpets, welding the doors shut, cutting the power, and then flying over in an army chopper and sending a missile right into Stancely's room. God, I hated her last year. Oooh or we could...Tobias? Tobias are you listening to me?"

    I snapped my head up. "Um...I think nuclear annihilation sounds good," I said. She rolled her eyes, "You have
no imagination." I threw the bisected french-fry back into the basket. Carlie and I were sitting across from each other at the Purple Café, a greasy little diner down the street from our school. It was a Friday, the first day of Christmas vacation. While most kids were slamming snow in each others faces, or packing for a vacation, Carlie and I were plotting the demolition of our middle school.

    Over the last several months, I had been drawn down a darker path. I now wore all black, like Carlie, and grew my hair until it was about shoulder length. My left ear was pierced thrice; a silver hoop at the bottom, a smaller one above that and a silver ball stud at the top. A skull grinned from my right earlobe. I also wore a Celtic knot necklace, inspired by Carlie's, that dangled just below my sternum. I wasn't sharp tongued or mean like Carlie could be, I was still me, but under a shade of darkness. The both of us had started smoking and I no longer cared about school or grades, regularly cutting class for any reason. I became blind to the world. But these things weren't out of self-pity, I felt bad every time I raised a cigarette to my lips or skipped math to go take a few drags behind the dumpsters. Most of it was out of spite.

    I wanted to rebel. Tranquility and passiveness had gotten me nowhere, so I did things that were wrong, that they didn't like and didn't accept, to get back at the ones who had treated me badly. But little did I know
that I was hurting myself more. Once this guy named Duane Thompson punched me for no reason. He just walked up and punched me in the face. The next day he found a death note in his locker. I hadn't done it, but I got suspended for a week. Later I found out Carlie had written it, because she cut school and stayed out with me. During that time we mostly hung out at my house or at the Purple Café, talking about how much we hated people and how much life sucked.

    "Maybe we could just run away," I suggested as Carlie squirted ketchup into the corner of her fry-basket. It earned me a whap upside the head. "Novel idea, Jack-ass. While we're still here why don't we crap in the
woods and go around begging for food and spare change just to get the hang of it." Carlie said bitterly. "Run away. What kind of an idiot are you? We live places and we should stay there, neither of our pare...uh adults are ever
home anyway." I caught the correction and she knew it and looking down, she fumbled the silver charm between her breasts. "Running away is a stupid idea," she said quietly, her voice gravely as it lowered in tone. I knew she hadn't meant to say that, she looked a little sad for me. I didn't want her to pity me like a lot of the girls at school did, so I got up. "I'm gonna jet, later," I said, tossing a five on the table to pay for my fries and
hers.

    She didn't reply, and I didn't look back. The bells above the door jingled as I stepped out. The sky was gray and macabre, just how I felt. I took off my jacket and let the stinging cold bite into my skin as I walked home.
I was very low-status, watching my feet and not even looking up as I slammed rudely into people's shoulders
or brushed them by. Halfway to the suburbs, I decided not to go back to my aunt's house, and headed to the
mall. As I walked I passed a small Methodist church where most of the kids at our school went. Something made me stop.

    There was a life-sized diorama of the birth of Jesus Christ in front of the church. A tiny shack-sized stable was open to the sidewalk; there were fake cows, sheep, and horses lying in the hay. A young man had a lamb circling his shoulders. Two other, older, men stood behind him; one on his knees offering a red and gold box, the other held a small lantern looking thing that dangled from a ball-chain.

    Three angels resided atop the structure, one holding a fishing rod with a glittering glass star hanging from the hook. The other two had their arms outstretched, mouths open, as if time had stopped in the middle of their heavenly song They all looked a tender-faced young woman kneeling in the hay. Even though she was a statue, her face seemed to shine with love, glass eyes glittering with tears of joy as she gazed into a hay-filled manger. A bearded man stood over her, hands on her shoulders and also looking into the manger as if he did not believe his eyes. The main focal point of the scene was the tiny baby boy nestled in the manger, his hair, the same tawny gold as the hay in which he rested, seemed to glow like a halo. His face held a look of complete serenity and his liquid blue eyes were turned heavenward. The gentle warmth in which his parents looked at him struck my heart with a pang of regret.

    It was like someone was mocking me, the birth of this single child, so loved by his family, was the most celebrated event in history. And here I was at thirteen years old, parentless, unloved, and revolting. I had rejected the ideals of society, refused to conform to fit in, and ended up turning away from everything that I truly was. And why? Because I was afraid. I disgusted myself.

    I was just about to turn away when a gray flash caught my eye. A tiny kitten had jumped onto the shoulder of the Virgin Mary and was looking straight at me. Its devastating green eyes bored into mine, cracking through the shadowed exterior into a darker, more uncertain depth-my soul. They seemed to read me like an open book, knowing me, and knowing all that I was.

    I shivered and turned away.

    I walked away from the church and the bible scene and the kitten, something had happened back there and I
wasn't sure what it was. I decided to go to the mall and try to forget about it, shrug it off like I did insults and
the repulsed looks from my peers. Only I didn't shrug them off, did I? I was left with their mark burned into my
mental wall, which somehow, after the continuous weathering of pain, had managed not to collapse.

    It began to sleet, half frozen rain pinged and bounced on the silver sidewalk before me, and stuck, unmelted, to the mesh of cotton fibers of my shirt. Sleet that fell at an angle stung my face and arms-I still hadn't put on my jacket- and recoated the frozen streets with another slick layer of ice. I shoved my hands in my pockets, thick wool jacket pressed against my waist by my forearm, and hunched over against the frozen shower.

    It felt good to walking the cold, shrouded in darkness as the waning gray light finally relinquished into the night. My scuffing footsteps led me to the mall, about four blocks away from my Aunts house. I pressed my palm to the glass pane of the door and watched the steam print grow around my fingers as I shoved it open.

    A rush of warm air hit me, the smell of French-fries and pizza drifted from the food court and the leather and cedar from the Great Outdoors camping shop mingled strangely, yet the smell was familiar. An immediate left turn brought me to the Cyber Station; a video-game arcade usually swamped with Nintendo and Sega junkies. But is was more or less empty tonight save a short red-haired kid with glasses, a bored looking employee and the manager, Phil. Flashing screens of Street Fighter, Double Dragon, Pace Man, Sonic the Hedgehog and Road Rash lined tha walls along with claw machines laden with stuffed prizes. Two token Machines were pressed back to back in the middle of the room, heading a center column of pinball machines.

    I shrugged my jacket on and walked in.

    I played video games as long as I could, immersing myself in the game and the ballad-like story told by my
preprogrammed actions. I had a subconscious plan, a course that I followed for hors. When I won I moved to another game, when I lost I played again. I was a game robot, unfeeling to everything. I played until nine, when the mall closed, loitering outside for a while and smoking just to have something to do. After the mall's night security shooed me away I walked through the still-sleeting night with no destination. I avoided the church.

    Around ten, I found myself back on my Aunt's doorstep. I shrugged on my jacket and opened the door- the
place I lived seemed colder to me than the outside.

    When I walked in I was met by an unexpected sight- my Aunt, a man, and a woman. My Aunt was sitting in her plush white easy chair, back straight as a line. The couple was sitting across from her on the couch, bodies rigid and faces taut. The man, who had bushy black eyebrows and a rugged profile, looked vaguely familiar. But I had never seen the woman. She had curly, Carol Burnette hair, I couldn't tell whether her eyes were green or blue because they were red and puffy. She was weeping. Her pale hands gripped a navy blue mug so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

    They were probably friends from my aunt's work, and I must have seen the man at one of the company parties
I was always dragged off to. I turned to go up the stairs.

    "Tobias," my Aunt called, stopping me in my tracks. "Could you come in here for a second." Reluctantly I did so.

    "Whatever Mr. Cooper told you," I said cynically. "It's not true." My aunt set her jaw angrily and sighed,
closing her eyes. "Tobias," she demanded, "Where did you go after school today?" She sounded annoyed.

    "The Purple Café," I answered. "Why?"

    "When did you leave?"

    "Around eight, what's the interrogation for?"

    "Were you alone?"

    "When I left I was, what's going on?"

    "Who were you with inside."

    "Carlie, why?"

    She sighed again, exasperated but seeming as if she had made her point. Now I was getting annoyed. "Look, what is all of this about?" I asked. She didn't answer right away. She was looking for the right words. Finally she came out with it. "Tobias,... after school today...your friend Carlie...," She couldn't seem to get the rest out. The redheaded woman's cheek twitched. No one spoke for an agonizingly long few seconds.

    "What," I asked. But suddenly I recognized the bushy eyebrowed man. He had been in the front office the day I had gotten suspended, talking to the office lady Ms. Price. Now this man looked vulnerable and dazed as though he was in a nightmare wide-awake. If one of them didn’t come out with it I felt I would crumble from suspense.

    But I already knew something was very wrong and whatever it was, Carlie was involved in it. I briefly toyed with the idea that she may have actually done something to the school and gotten arrested for it, but she wouldn't do that. Not without me anyway. What if she actually ran away? Could that be it? No, again, not without me.

    "What's going on?" I demanded, raising my voice in exasperation.

    "Tobias," my Aunt said slowly, choosing her words carefully. "Carlie was killed this evening."

    My stomach dropped to the floor, I felt sick. She was lying to me, mocking me like everyone else in the world. My only friend was not dead; she was probably home right now. She couldn't be dead! Couldn't...couldn't.

    My Aunt forced a sympathetic smile, her cheek dimpled oddly and her voice came out strained. "I can't tell
you how sorry I am. Don't worry though, Toby, it will be fine." She paused and looked at the couple, Carlie's parents but still spoke to me. "You'll make new friends."

    Anger boiled up inside me; I closed my eyes and tried to keep my hands from shaking. In halted speech I said, "How...could you be...so heartless?" Her smile wavered; she looked confused, then angry. "Young man, I think you need to get your priorities straight. You disrespected teachers but you will not disrespect me! Now I know Carlie's death must be a shock to you but..." I didn't hear anymore.

    "Shut up!" I yelled, "Just shut up! You have no idea, no idea what I...what...you...you're lying! You say Carlie's dead but she's not, it's a lie! A lie!" But I knew it wasn't. The woman with Carol Burnette hair, Carlie's mom, was in hysterics. I was suffocating in the room. My own denial and grief were crushing me, would crush me if I didn't leave.

    I wheeled around and almost crazily threw open the door, not bothering to shut it behind me as I made a mad dash away from suffocation. I didn't even bother watching for the slick sheets of ice, nothing mattered to me
anymore. I ran without knowing where I was going, just away from my Aunt, her house and all of my pain. But you
can't escape pain when it burns from the inside, it exploded from my chest and surrounded me like I was
immersed in water both freezing and boiling. It followed me no matter how hard I ran.

    I ran letting my feet carry me, turning corners and rushing past houses, not caring that my legs were aching and my lungs were burning. My eyes blurred both from sleet and tears, my hands were clenched into fists. I slipped on a patch of ice and fell to the pavement, slamming my hip and elbow against the cement.

    I lay there for a second, watching the clouds of moisture appear and vanish in front of my face. Like ghostly specters come to console me in my loss. Ghostly specters of the long dead and forgotten. Dead...like Carlie. I shook my head and, anxious to run again, tried to get up. I levered myself up onto one elbow and pushed against the ground with my free hand, heaving my torso off of the sidewalk. Suddenly my hand shot out from under me, my body crashing back to the ground. I felt a slash of pain just before my hand was enveloped in warmth. I looked down and the sleet/snow layer below my hand was red, like someone squashed a bottle of food coloring. It was spreading. I turned my hand over; there was a long gash from the heel of my hand to the gap between my thumb and forefinger. Blood gushed from the torn flesh.

    I folded my legs beneath me and stood, cradling my right hand with my left. I paused, why shouldn't I let it
bleed? What if this was just God's way of telling me, time to go, Tobias? I dropped my hand to my side; I would let it bleed. So what if I died? No one would care, although my Aunt and Uncle would have quite a spat over who would get the insurance money. What did I have to lose anyway? Carlie was gone, my only friend was gone, and all that she left me to face was a life of hardship and misery.

    Something tugged on my heart and I felt my knees buckle. My lip trembled and tears welled into my eyes. I suddenly felt vulnerable and weak. Why? Why was this happening to me? Hot salt water streamed down my cheeks and gathered at my chin as I hung my head in defeat. I furrowed my brow in confusion for too long; the muscles in my forehead began to ache. I suddenly wanted desperately to be held, by anyone. I wanted to press my face into someone's shoulder and sob, hearing their words of comfort as they held me in their arms.

    I gritted my teeth and ran again. I ran and ran until suddenly I was in front of a building. I didn't even look up
until I was inside. I realized that I was inside the church. Something in my subconscious brought me here. I dashed down the isle, blinded by tears and weakening with every step. I stubbed the toe of my shoe on the ground and tumbled to the red carpeted floor, laying there in defeat, in surrender. I looked up, I was almost twenty yards from the altar, and hanging above the altar was a golden crucifix. I gazed at it in torment, "Why?" My voice came out barely above a whisper; I choked over the word. I stared through blurred eyes at the smooth curves and angles of Jesus' placid face. His eyes were closed in serenity. "Why?" I asked louder, my voice cracking harshly. There was no answer.

    It hadn't been her time to go, we had so much we still needed to do...it wasn't supposed to end this way. We had never been close, not even really friends, but she had been someone to talk to, or more like someone to listen to because she did most of the talking. Was I really crying for Carlie? Or was I crying for myself, for my pain, for my life and not hers. I shook the thought from my head. No, my tears were for Carlie, not for me. But I couldn't convince myself.

    I gave in; collapsing in a heap and sobbing worthlessly. I couldn't stop crying. I was weakening and loosing
a lot of blood from my hand, but I didn't care. I began to lose control over my body, trembling incessantly.
Suddenly I was filled with a comforting feeling, it was like someone familiar placed a hand on my back. I felt at peace. I sank into that peaceful feeling, let it flow in and around me, engulf me. I felt heat on my damp face, barely noticing as it spread throughout my body, as if it ran through my nerves.

    The heat made me tired and the rough red carpet was a welcome feeling. I barely noticed my waning  consciousness until my thoughts became the irrational dream world of sleep. I was asleep inside a church.
 

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