Out of the Ordinary
Hi, my name is Rob. I’m a 16 year-old boy and I live in a big city. I live with my mother and my older brother Jacob. Jacob is cool but for some reason every time I talk about trivia he punches me in the arm and tells me to quit it. I love trivia, I have since I was younger. Did you know that Madagascar produces two thirds of the world’s vanilla? Or that an apple was Isaac Newton’s inspiration to write the laws of gravity? I can actually go on for days and teach you many new things. My mother is always around, she always tells me she worries about me but I don’t know why, like, what’s wrong with me? I guess that’s what I go to Dr. Lee for. Dr. Lee is the lady I see twice a week at 5 o’ clock, but I have to leave her office at exactly 6:15 so that I can catch Jeopardy, because if I miss it my brain won’t except that and I won’t be able to think straight and sometimes I even start to scream.
On a rainy evening, I see my mother crying. “Mom why are you crying?” I ask.
“Sweetie, your grandpa William died this morning from a heart attack.” She starts crying even harder. I wish she would stop, the noise is making my head hurt and I wonder if she knows how ugly she looks when she's crying. I try to make her stop by giving her some information on heart attacks.
“Mom did you know that every 20 seconds a heart attack occurs and a heart attack fatality occurs about every minute, or did you know almost 14 million Americans have a history of heart attack or angina or how about that costs related to heart attacks exceed 60 billion dollars a year, that includes: charges for hospitalization, doctors, and prescription drugs… oh and did you also know-“
“Rob enough with all this damn trivia!” She yells.
I’ve never ever heard her raise her voice like that. Jacob walks in and says, “Rob just go back to your room with your trivia, Mom doesn't want to hear all of that right now.”
Jacob looks like he's crying too. “Jacob are you crying too? Did you know that while you’re crying your nose stops up because-“
“Quit it I said!” Jacob yells.
I stare at both Mom and Jacob for a while and then go to my room. I can’t cry, I don't know why though. What makes people cry? For the rest of the night I just read my Jeopardy flash cards until I fall asleep.
The next day, I went to meet up with Dr. Lee again. Now, normally, we have our own special sessions. That’s what I like to call them, but for some odd reason, today I was with a bunch of kids that I’ve never seen before. I asked Dr. Lee. “What’s going on here?”
She then replied, “We are trying something new, I want you to meet people who are just like you, I want you to meet some new friends.”
Just like me? My mother says I’m one of a kind. I said okay and proceeded to walk into the crowd of children. Here kids were nothing like me, I saw a kid in there wearing stripes, and I hate stripes. A kid approached me and asked my name, “I’m Robert Shane”
He replied “Hi Robert Shane I’m Eric and I like turtles.” He reached his hand out for a hand shake but his hands were filthy, I could see all the dirt on them. I walked away from the kids to go sit in the corner by myself but as I walked a girl caught my eye, so I walked over to her.
“I’m Rob. What is your name?” I asked her.
She replied, “Stacey!” With a huge smile.
I ask, “Can I ask you something Stacey?” and she nods.
“Did you know that trained pigeons can tell the difference between the paintings of Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet?”
She smiled and said, “Yeah but did you know that the peacock mantis shrimp can throw a punch at 50 MPH, accelerating quicker that a .22 Caliber bullet?”
I couldn't believe it. She was the first person ever to entertain my trivia. We went back and forth on trivia for a few minutes. For once I felt like I actually belonged somewhere. I got this feeling in my stomach but I didn't know what it was. I was so into our conversation I forgot to look up at the clock and when I did it was 6:15. Oh no… where is my mother? I ran to the window, “Where is she it’s 6:15!”
I saw Dr. Lee run toward me, she told me everything was going to be okay but I saw the time pass… 6:16, 6:17, 6:18… I lost it, I pushed Dr. Lee off of me and I ran! I didn't even know how to get home but I thought that if I kept running I would be home eventually. I got to a busy street, but I don't know how to cross the street by myself. I closed my eyes and started to walk across. As I was walking across I heard cars honking and when I finally opened my eyes something made them shut again.
A car had hit me and I blacked out. . .I was in the hospital now.
And then I found out that my mom’s there, a few doors down, because she had gotten into a bad car accident. I missed jeopardy for the first time since I was 6. I didn't want to speak to anyone. Until I saw Stacey standing at the door. The feeling in my stomach had come back and I didn't feel pain anywhere else anymore. Her presence was all I needed. She sat there and talked to me for hours every day until I was released from the hospital. She was now someone that I could call my friend…my very first friend.
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