requiem for the fallen

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March 15, 2005

Guilt

I knew a boy, once. Before he went away.
He came to school on the first day with bruises. Every day after he had more. Sometimes on his pale little face, other times on his long, thin legs, and once on his chest - I asked, and he showed me why he couldn't do sport that day. A deep purple coloured his sternum.
His name was Albert, but we all called him Albie. I think that was the name of a character on a then-important television show, but now, it's just his name.
Albie sat alone at lunchtimes. He ate his sandwich - always peanut-butter - and watched the rest of us run about, kicking the football or pretending we were something we could never be.
Albie stopped coming to school after a while. Mrs Lythe, my teacher that year, said he went to live in Sydney, with his Dad.

I saw Albie yesterday. There's no way he could have recognised me; I've changed so much, but he hasn't. He still has his ragged silver-white hair cut in the same messy fashion, and his clothes still hang off his body like a scarecrow's. He was with his Mum. I recognised her, too. Every day, she'd drop him off in the car park, and be waiting in the same place for him after the last bell. He never stayed to talk to his friends - he didn't have any.
So he got into the car, every day, with his tired-looking Mum, black bags under her eyes, hair in a loose bun.
Only once, when I was riding past, did I see her hit him. Albie's face smashed into the passenger window. Actually, that was the last day anyone saw him at school.
No one else knew.

Posted by requiem at March 15, 2005 07:35 PM

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