wish.”
I hit an all-time low after the little prank he’d played on me. I felt sick to my stomach, and hot in my head. I lay in bed all day, not eating. I hadn’t been happy in so long—to feel that way again, only to have it been fake, a cruel trick…
I never wished death on any one in my life, but I was wishing it on him now. How could anyone be so thoughtless, so malicious? It was almost inconceivable. And my whole life, with those flashes, I thought I was the one who had done something wrong—because I thought I was the boy in those flashes—but I was not. I was a nice man. He was the one who had wronged me. I felt stupid for falling for his story, but he was such a talented story-teller, I could not blame myself entirely. I was like that for a whole week, just drowning in those awful memories.
The worst thing was I loved him as my own child. I spoke to him often in passing. But, when I really got to know him was when he was telling the other servants stories.
I was going to walk into the kitchen, but I heard them laughing—I wished to know why, so I stood outside the door for a moment, not wanting to make them tense.
“…but,” Gabriel was saying, “it wasn’t just the fact that he wanted something wonderful to do with his life, it was also the fact that anywhere else would be like heaven to him. A lot of people are not gracious or happy to have the lives they have. They complain and moan and seek addictions to coat imagined pain. These are people who are free—they can reach for the stars and their dreams—and this boy cannot. He is stuck, unhappy. But every night, he dreamed of being free, and it is not a dream any slave would dare to pursue, but this boy… it was all he could think of. And he had something those other slaves never would, he had the passion to chase what he wanted. This passion and bravery was his freedom, and he was captured fifteen times, but still never gave up. It was his freedom, because it was his own choice to run, and no one else’s. He was… free.”
I smiled and creaked the door open then. “Gabriel, you didn’t tell me you were such a talented storyteller. You ought to nurture that talent,”
He looked down, embarrassed.
I leaned against the wall, crossing my arms. “Don’t be shy, it’s a compliment. You deserve it. Would you mind telling one of your stories to my daughter when she goes to sleep? She sometimes gets restless…”
“C-certainly sir…”
“Syli,” I corrected him.
The reason he was so talented a storyteller, was of course, because he could not fix or deal with his problems in real life. He was so pent up and held back—told to shut up so often—that his only form of release were these stories. And he thought them through completely and convincingly, with so much realism and so little melodrama, anyone could be transfixed.
I tried to be his friend, but he was afraid of me, and almost every other adult. He had dark rims under his eyes, and his clothes were tattered and torn. He did not have a good home life to be sure. And I only wished to help him.
One day, at night, after he told his stories to my daughter, I stopped him as he was heading home. “Gabriel, can I talk to you?”
“You don’t really need permission sir…”
I smiled. “Right. I was just curious to know whether you took my advice and are getting a tutor?”
“All the money goes to my parents…” He said awkwardly.
“All…?” I asked quietly.
“Yes… we haven’t got very much money….” He shrugged.
“How about a raise?” I said altruistically. “I want you to keep some money for yourself. You have talent, don’t waste it.”
“Why?” He said mistrustfully, taking a step back.
I knelt down and looked him right in the eyes. “Because when I was small, nobody ever believed in me. I’ve made something of myself, of course, but I wouldn’t be happy right now if it weren’t for my wife and my child. My parents were never supportive, and I wasn’t happy for a long time in my life because of it. They had instilled in my mind that I was made of stone; I could not change into something worthwhile—it took me a long time before I made something of myself. Life should not be that way for anything that grows….”
His eyes brimmed with unshed tears. I knew what he was thinking—he was thinking that nobody knew or cared how he felt, and to know of just other one person who did seemed to break through whatever wall he had chosen to put up.
I held out a few extra gold pieces for him. His hand trembled over it—and then quick as a snake, he grabbed the gold and put it away. He bowed politely. “Thank you si—Syli.”
I grinned. “You’re very welcome. Remember, that’s for you—not your parents.”
I watched him walk out the door. I finally broke the ice, it seemed.
But the next time I saw him, he was very unhappy. He walked up to me shyly and asked, “do I have to stay late tonight? I don’t feel well…”
“Why? Is there something I can do to help? You can go home now if you wish to….” I asked worriedly.
He looked up at me, trying to find words, but was instead quiet for many moments. Finally he said, “why do you wish to be friends with me?”
“Well it’s not just you… I wish to be friends with everyone I meet. It takes a man a whole life to make proper friends—ones you can trust—and I know you’re one of those. And I also know…. You need friends.” I told him honestly.
He tried to say something, but instead he began weeping bitterly. I threw my arms about him like I did while comforting my daughter. “I just want to know what it is to feel normal…”
“I want you to,” I said. “Which is why when you come here, you no longer have to work, but I will still pay you. I want you to tell stories instead, and I want you to do whatever makes you happy.”
“You would do that?”
“Of course.”
“May I… practice singing? I’ve been told I have some talent.”
He sang that damned song he hummed as Micah. And he sang it often. I liked it, and everyone else did too. It was the melody that had served as the backdrop of my current, unhappy life. And I wondered how something that used to bring joy, could now only bring a thudding unhappiness in my mind.
And after that, we became very close very fast. I gave him the praise and adulation he always craved, and he thought of me as his father.
I would have never in my life expected the dark turns our lives took.
One day, he stayed longer than he was supposed to, and he sat at the top of the stairs connecting the downstairs to the upstairs. I saw him and I frowned. I walked up slowly and sat next to him. “Something wrong?”
“Can I… I mean—may I stay here for a few days?” He asked.
“Well I’d love to have you, but you must tell me why and of course if you got the permission of your parents,” I answered with a gentle smile.
“Well it’s because—I don’t want to go back home…”
I laughed, “I need a little more than that if I don’t want to be accused of kidnapping.”
He looked at me, devastated. He got to his feet with a sick-to-his-stomach look on his face. “I thought you wanted to help me!”
“Well, I do, but like I said…” I tried to calm him down, but the situation was slipping from my fingers.
“You don’t understand… they don’t like me. They don’t pay attention to me—they make fun of me…” He was crying.
“Don’t cry,” I said calmly, throwing my arms around him.
He wept bitterly, and I stroked his hair lovingly. It was strange how one could grow to love someone as much as his own flesh and blood—but I did. Blood did not matter. Somehow, a bond had formed, and it was a special bond. One that I could never break willingly-- I wanted to whisk him away from his terrible life; I wanted to show him how good life could be—I wanted to show him what a life with love was like. I wanted to give him the chance he deserved, and I knew he had talent to spare. Because he was like me as a child.
But he
was not mine by blood. I could not take him. It would destroy us both. It tore me apart having to leave him with parents that did not want him—because in every way that counted, he was mine more than theirs.
Somehow, I had to make him understand. “Someday soon—when you are an adult—you can live wherever you wish, whether with me or on your own. But know that I will always be there for you, whatever you do.”
“You know what I’ll be like if I stay that long with them, but you still choose to let me suffer anyway! I thought you were different. I thought…” He wiped his eyes and headed down the stairs.
“Wait!” I said, running after him. On the first floor, I caught his arm while he was standing next to a vase. He struggled in vain, mumbling in anguish as he did so.
He was angry--and I could not tell whether it was in the spur of the moment--or whether it was a trait built into his personality—but as I turned my back to him and began dragging him further into the house, he grabbed the vase and threw it at my head.
All I could hear was glass shattering in my ear; my vision became bleary, I was in shock and disbelief at what happened—and my body took a moment to register what happened. I did not feel pain for a whole thirty seconds, and then I collapsed. That sound was locked into my ears and mind forever.
Blue was knocked lose in my head, and it mended the parts of my head that were wounded, closing them. But Blue was never moved back into place, it moved as much as I did, scrambled my