Lost

The child walked down the middle of the street, seen by many and watched by one. Reaching out her right hand - she slid her finger along the side of a taxi cab and made a streak in the filth. With her left hand she pointed at a stoplight… green turned red. The girl had nothing to do with that, and she knew it, but she took pleasure in the timing.

Exhausted and lost, she gave up … She sat down and surrendered herself to the world that had forgotten her. It moved on; the cab drove past, the light turned green, and the small piece of the world that she had chosen to die on needed to be cleared. So she was found.

I can’t stay here - they did not listen.

I can’t stay here - they did not hear.

I won’t go with you - and she didn’t.

As she watched the car’s lights disappear she wondered when they would realize their passenger was no longer that.

In her dreams she was always found. Once by a beautiful family with a small bed and breakfast at 8 AM. Once by people like her. Many times by the man that followed her everywhere, but not always by him.

The man that followed her never moved. Though he may have been cutting the grass, or preaching the gospel, or collecting the garbage… he only watched, he only stood, and he only watched.

The child knew that if she walked to the man, just once, she would be welcomed into his house. But she also knew that if she were to go to him, even once, she would be lost forever. She was hungry. She was always hungry, and she was always lost, and she always walked.

Secondary School

Professor Nick Taylor’s wall clock confirmed that it was still 3:57 PM. Three minutes until his final appointment of the day.

The first nineteen meetings had gone smoothly; really they were little more than a handshake and some banal chit chat. Usually Nick made a game of guessing which website each student had stumbled upon for interview prep based on which gambit they had used to make themselves ‘stand out from the crowd.’ Unfortunately, following the notional wisdom dispensed by I-prefer-the-freedom-of-blogging types usually makes for a forgettable interview. Imagine that.

What else could you expect? They were kids. Each had turned seventeen within the last month and they’d been scooped up, separated from their units, and dropped into Second School. It would hardly be fair to ask much from them in their first one-on-one with their new principal educator. It wasn’t really out of boredom that Nick kept the first session short, it was mercy.

However, late last night Nick had rearranged his entire schedule to open up a full hour at the end of the day for student number twenty, James Roth II. 

Nick knew that to treat one student differently than the others broke a cardinal rule of Secondary education. The entire purpose of the seventeen years in general population capped by one year at Secondary School was to send Seconds back onto their half-trodden path without any of the prejudices and biases they had learned the first time around. None of the Seconds knew what awaited them when they turned eighteen, some inherited a fortune and some got a bus pass, but they all received the same education. 

As Nick reviewed his dossier on James Roth Sr. for the umpteenth time, his resolve hardened. There was simply too much at stake to treat James Roth II like the others.

—

“James, if you had to guess, what type of person were you in your first life?”

James stifled a smirk, “I don’t have to guess. I was a great man, a leader.”

Half right. “What makes a man great James?”

“Power.”

Nick stifled a shudder.

Birdhouse

A hush settled over the office as three men struggled to situate Mr. Oliver’s unwieldy mass on top of a reception desk. There was a pop and a faint groan as the desk slouched and settled, resigning itself to a not-quite-level existence. Mr. Oliver straightened his jacket and over-corrected his tie.

“Today is the culmination of twelve long years. Twelve years of sweat, twelve years of commitment, twelve years of your trust in me. Trust in my great moment of inspiration, my ‘bolt of lightning’, my call to arms, and twelve years to see it done. I could not have done it without each and every one of you…”

Malcolm watched Oliver from the doorway of his office. He turned his back and stepped inside, flicking the door handle behind him and letting it close loud enough to turn a few heads in the back of the crowd. A murmur rolled towards Oliver and his lopsided lectern, where it was swept away.

Malcolm fumed as he paced his dark office.

Oliver deserves credit like a pencil sharpener does for a novel written on a laptop.

The last twelve years were Malcolm’s prime, he had put his heart and soul into this company, and now Oliver was selling it out from under him. Malcolm poured four fingers from the bottom drawer and stood by the window.

Across the street about three floors down a man was leaning out of his window wrenching at an AC unit, and the thing was fighting back gamely. The man lifted himself up onto the window ledge leaned out above the street, pulling and pushing the box with all he had.

As the man lost his balance and fell, Malcolm realized it wasn’t an air-conditioner, it was a birdhouse. He'd never noticed it before.

Shouts welled up from below. A sparrow hopped out of one of the rooms in the birdhouse and looked down at the sidewalk. The bird shuffled his wings for a minute in the warmth of the sun. Then it disappeared, back home.