He's Just A Boy

       

        He’s just a boy, another bully in school but oftentimes bullied. He got no friends, not a single one would stick around him. He is a nerd, got a world of his own. He wears the same old shirt and jeans everyday like he’d never change. He’s emaciated. He eats lunch alone, in the isolated areas in school – either in the toilet or near the garbage dump where no one could see him. He was often rejected in groups and games. He walks to school alone. He is an outcast.

          He’s just a boy. Nobody knows what he’s holding back. He seems to lose his childhood. His eyes were filled with anger and bitterness but sometimes express a glint of being fearful. He is not progressing, not even in grades or attitude. He is good for nothing, a teachers’ burden. He pays no attention to his studies. He is not even listening to his teachers. Many times he was caught scribbling images of blood and violence. He is a war-freak, a problem child; A frequent in the principal’s office and a regular in the detention. Not a day in school that he won’t get himself in a fight that explains the bruises, contusions and scratches he earned every day.

          Everyone wonders – Parents and Teachers alike – but nobody cares to ask. No one knew him deeply except for the fact of being hated.

          One day he was absent. They just think he might be sick. A week followed, he missed their class’ Christmas Party. Classes already resumed for the new year and still he’s not present. A rumor broke that he was expelled from school. A month later of his absence, his adviser decided to pay a home visit to discuss school matters and his absence and there she found out.

         There he was… resting peacefully six feet below the ground. The name that used to be in the teacher’s class record was now beautifully carved on a polished rock. He eventually went to a place where there is only happiness. A world that was once existed only in his dreams, probably reunited with his mother. A place of comfort, a paradise he’d never experience a thousand years in this mean world. A place where he is accepted, not judged. Somewhere he can enjoy his childhood – have friends and playmates to play with. A place where he is loved.

          On that night of December 16, 2012, his last day of attendance in school, he was ruthlessly beaten by his drunken stepfather like he’d always do almost every night. The neighbors hear him cry but choose to be deaf, they can see the damage, the trauma but they choose to be blind. Nothing was done because they were scared, far more scared than the boy enduring for his life until that fateful night… He caught a fever after the cruelty. He rested for his last breath and fell unto the wings of an angel who cuddled him peacefully. Until then, he left the cruel world and eternally refuge in a life he always wanted but never had.

          It is only then that they realized that the boy was often misunderstood. He is neglected, a victim of abuse. A frail soul caught in the bondage of cruelty. After all, He’s just a boy….

©Grace Gift T. Chua