Acroama

Tim was alone. After a full year of high school, he had friends now. His junior year was shaping up to be a good one. But nonetheless, he was alone. He chose to be alone. There was a nice spot in the large high school that no one really knew about.  Tim observed during drama class one day, that the auditorium doors on the right side of the house only latched shut at the top of the door. These doors opened to a main hallway. If no one was walking by, he could slide his student ID along the top of the door, hold the latch down, and get inside the auditorium.  However, he didn’t settle for a comfortable chair in the house. It was too dark. She loved the dark.  He walked away from the stage, up the aisles past the red upholstered seats, and towards the main entrance doors at the top of the house.  The house doors opened to a vestibule between the auditorium doors and a set of four doors that opened to the main foyer of Tim’s High School. The doors to the foyer were alway...

Tim woke in the hospital. His hand had pins in it. He would need to spend quite some time there allowing the bones to heal, and for functioning to return to his muscles. He could tell his hand wouldn’t be able to fully recover from so much damage. His concerned mother asked him what happened. She explained that he was found in the bathroom passed out on the floor, and that there was no indication of how this had happened. She eventually asked him if he was being bullied.  Tim thought for a moment and replied, “yes. I think I am.” “What do you mean, you think you are? Who did this to you?” His mother frantically asserted. Tim contemplated telling the truth, but couldn’t stand to have his mom start to look at him differently. Out of all the people in his life, he felt his mom was the one who could understand what he was going through the most. Tim decided to lie. “Mitchell … Mitchell did this to me.” The doctor came into the room. Dr Genly had a surprising amount of hair for a practi...

Going back to school was difficult. Tim got a strange sort of attention. People looked at him, and it seemed as if they had something they wanted to say – but that their mouths were sewn shut. This attention made Tim feel more alone. Even Kara seemed to have her mouth sewn shut at times.  But worse than the stares without eyes, were his visions of the accident. Everything seemed to remind him of his brother sitting in the driver's seat crumpled against the steering wheel. He began recalling details about the gore that he didn’t realize he had observed in such great detail. The class laughed at one of Mr. Durman’s jokes; Tim thought, ‘Mark's head probably hit against the windshield before he settled back against the steering wheel – because there were large gashes and shards of glass in his brother’s forehead.’ Kara’s lunch looked good, Tim was hungry and started going without lunch so that mom wouldn’t get charged by the school; ‘Mark’s nose and top row of teeth must’ve hit the...

The number of people that sat outside during lunch seemed to dwindle a little more every day. Winter was on its way. Tim and his cousin Kara were among the few who were willing to brave the fall chill. Tim was now an 8th grader and his final year of middle school was not proving to be as dreadful as everyone had said it would be. Kara was a grade younger than Tim and appreciated how kind Tim was to her; they ate lunch together outside every day.  The sun brought Tim joy. Sitting outside on the grass, he could snag only a few moments of sunlight – as the large clouds passed in and out of view of the sun. When the sun passed behind a cloud, its light and heat faded imperceptibly. But as it burst through the clouds again, he was filled immediately with warmth, and the world burst with color. The large soccer field popped with green, Kara’s blond hair shone like gold, and goosebumps prickled across Tim’s back and arms. Sometimes the sun stayed so long that when Tim bent over – his blac...