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Description

We rub shoulders every day with people who are desperate, hurting, and lonely.

We may not even be aware of the dark road they travel.

Sometimes we notice, but often we don’t.

Maybe we’re too busy, preoccupied, or overwhelmed ourselves.

To be honest, many days, we might be those people, the desperate, the hurting, the lonely

just needing someone to notice. To slow down. To take time.

The memory is blurred. Maybe sixth grade, not together in the same class long enough

to give him a encoded place in reflection.

Shortly after the school term began, we, the class, were simply aware of a gap, a missing place keeper.

A nondescript empty chair, somewhere in the center of us.

No impression was made, he never had an awkward turn at the chalk board, just a ghost of a boy.

The whispered rumors. Was he sent away. maybe a crime, living at a home for boys now?

The unoccupied chair was always a testament to some unprescribed vacancy.

Months in or perhaps even later, a small speaker appeared on the teacher's desk.

She explained it and asked us to remember Caleb who started the term with us.

Maybe a truly teaching moment. She described a late night where some boys took golf carts on a darkened course.

It went terribly wrong, a cart off a hazard bridge and a crushing injury.

Caleb followed along as he recovered in a darkened bedroom.

We were unable to perceive how he could follow Mrs. Foster as she diagrammed problems,

with sweeping arches of hand.

I mean, I had trouble, seeing it.

Much later he appeared, just as abruptly as when he wasn't,

but in a motorized chair, so thin with pale translucent skin.

He conducted the chair and his world really, with a sort of baton.

It was his stylus, like a big straw in his teeth, but no movement below his neck.

He was a quiet, side eyed sideshow for awhile. Then the class moved on.

He was the watcher.

He typed slowly, one character with the stylus tip, a word, a sentence.

Auto correct was his nemesis, a few minutes of his efforts could be rendered nil.

I remember his agitation, the low moan of aggravation, control crouching just beyond him.

And then the day the stylus dropped, a life line seen, but worlds away from his.

The profusion of sweat on his forehead, absolute strain to be in that body.

Sometime after, hearing the school nurse speaking to Mrs. Foster.

His spine could no longer support his head, sinking into him, progressive suffocation.

I believe it was a Monday the class returned, his chair was gone. The space was filled in,

smooth sand after the tide moved out again .

Description

We rub shoulders every day with people who are desperate, hurting, and lonely.

We may not even be aware of the dark road they travel.

Sometimes we notice, but often we don’t.

Maybe we’re too busy, preoccupied, or overwhelmed ourselves.

To be honest, many days, we might be those people, the desperate, the hurting, the lonely

just needing someone to notice. To slow down. To take time.

The memory is blurred. Maybe sixth grade, not together in the same class long enough

to give him a encoded place in reflection.

Shortly after the school term began, we, the class, were simply aware of a gap, a missing place keeper.

A nondescript empty chair, somewhere in the center of us.

No impression was made, he never had an awkward turn at the chalk board, just a ghost of a boy.

The whispered rumors. Was he sent away. maybe a crime, living at a home for boys now?

The unoccupied chair was always a testament to some unprescribed vacancy.

Months in or perhaps even later, a small speaker appeared on the teacher's desk.

She explained it and asked us to remember Caleb who started the term with us.

Maybe a truly teaching moment. She described a late night where some boys took golf carts on a darkened course.

It went terribly wrong, a cart off a hazard bridge and a crushing injury.

Caleb followed along as he recovered in a darkened bedroom.

We were unable to perceive how he could follow Mrs. Foster as she diagrammed problems,

with sweeping arches of hand.

I mean, I had trouble, seeing it.

Much later he appeared, just as abruptly as when he wasn't,

but in a motorized chair, so thin with pale translucent skin.

He conducted the chair and his world really, with a sort of baton.

It was his stylus, like a big straw in his teeth, but no movement below his neck.

He was a quiet, side eyed sideshow for awhile. Then the class moved on.

He was the watcher.

He typed slowly, one character with the stylus tip, a word, a sentence.

Auto correct was his nemesis, a few minutes of his efforts could be rendered nil.

I remember his agitation, the low moan of aggravation, control crouching just beyond him.

And then the day the stylus dropped, a life line seen, but worlds away from his.

The profusion of sweat on his forehead, absolute strain to be in that body.

Sometime after, hearing the school nurse speaking to Mrs. Foster.

His spine could no longer support his head, sinking into him, progressive suffocation.

I believe it was a Monday the class returned, his chair was gone. The space was filled in,

smooth sand after the tide moved out again .