As he sits on the bus silently pondering his thoughts, he rewinds the day back in his head. He learned a variety of things today, and found the school day to be overall productive. His teacher complimented his paper during English and he got an A on his math test. He caught eyes with a beautiful girl during lunch while they were both sitting alone, and he wondered if she knew how beautiful she really was. He understood that she was naïve to the fact that he could care for her in a way other men could not; he could make her feel loved more than anyone ever had in her life, but nothing would change; she would remain naïve and he would still be alone with his thoughts. She would never feel the warmth of his love.

The school day was a flash and just as he was sitting in the same seat he sat that morning, pondering last night’s lessons, he had returned there in what seemed like an instant. The ugly yellow polluted bus neared his stop sign before his house and he began to hope that no one was home. Then he could be alone with his thoughts and learn from the characters he finds in his literature, his only found friends. He passed his mailman just a driveway before his house and he caught the sparkle in his eye. The sparkle implied a happiness to be offering a needed service and to be right with himself in the world; an oddity. This reassuring instance reminded him the importance of being right with one’s self. He had been silent with his thoughts and alone with just himself as his only company for a while now. As the mailman passed he flashed a bright white smile, seemingly happy to see him, one of the people his service benefits. His smile was inviting, small wrinkles gathered in the corners of his eyes making him seem humble and trusting; this was a nice touch complimenting the sparkle in his eyes and the glow of his smile. As the mailman passed, his morale seemed to rise and he began to believe that his parents would not be home to ruin this moment.

His parents are not demons; they are not skin-heads, atheists, sadists, drunks or anything of that sort. They had the misfortune of haunting his past. Things they said to him at a time when he could not handle it, subsequently degrading his confidence and crushing the pillars stabilizing his heart ruined their relationship. He felt the once sparkle that was in his eye was put out, and he had lost his humbleness and trustworthy appearance like the mailman. After the fights and the threats and the screaming passed, he changed; then they made the crime of misunderstanding him. He greatly changed, and became a balanced intelligent man that relies on logic and the teachings of transcendentalists to guide him along an unbeaten path. He looks to God, Thoreau, Emerson, Franklin, London, Paulson, and many more for wisdom. He used to be funny, to many, one of the funniest they knew. He would talk to anyone and everyone without caution and it was his outgoing personality that made him so inviting. This changed, as did he. He had a rough time with the transition from one stage in his life to another and had many obstacles to persevere through, during which, he was crushed by the weight he felt on his shoulders as just a helpless child. Now he is quiet on the outside, always in thought though, and sees the world as the unknowing. He sees a world that is not worth laughing at and people surrounding this earth that aren’t worth knowing. The disease, war, corruption, famine, and hatred stopped his outgoing personality in its tracks, while he was vulnerable from his family tearing him to shreds.

He slid his key in the door with much suspense and hoped his wish would be granted that day. He entered, it was quiet, no one in his living room, no one in the kitchen, then in the distance he heard, “Hey I’m home.” Immediately feeling intruded he let his adrenaline carry him to his room as fast as he could arrive there, away from the monster, ignorant to his world. After his homework was finished he became buried deep between the lines of a life he wished to attain. He read the subtle truths about life portrayed through the magical characters imagined by the legends he trusts with the direction of his mind. While noting the lessons and discoveries of these seemingly perfect observations of these authors, his flaws become visible and malleable with the light of their knowledge. He looked up for a second to notice the pitter patter of rain drops on the glass of the window behind him. He loved rain; he understood the rain and felt as though his thoughts, emotions and subconscious became one force that he could make sense of.

As the sun fell, the lights in his room began to turn on. As quickly as the day came, it went. He kept his lights on for what seemed like moments. He finished his chapter, wrote down a quick note and closed his thoughts off along with the novel. His lights turned off and he sat holding a family picture from his childhood in darkness. As a tear fell he tossed the picture onto the floor and held his head in his hands. His mother sat quietly reading, his neighbor watched night time television, the mailman greeted his daughter with a hug and a warming smile, the businessman got to his car to make the long drive home when the glass shattered, the grass bent, the rain stopped. The stars looked down upon him with weary eyes and frightened hearts. A piano played for him as a friend shared truth to a listening community.

It was the next day at school and the talk around the halls was echoing louder than any other day. “Today was different; today there was a lesson to be learned. There was no pushing on this day, no yelling, no fights, not much talking either. One of the kids at school said, “I don’t get it man, he was so funny and happy yesterday, we had a great time, there didn’t seem to be a silent moment;” this was one of his best friends saying the same thing that many of his friends were saying that day. Just as that sentence was being repeated over and over by many, the principle’s voice appeared over the intercom…”Today is a day we won’t soon forget, today one of our students has decided to take his own life, a student close to many of you, a student close to this school.” Time stood still, eyes were glassy, and it was known that the outside appearance of him was only a mask covering his everyday truth.

That night after he set his family picture down, he jumped out of his window and landed two stories down in his grass, wet with rain and blood he sat in his suicide. He was not actually quiet at school; he spoke often to many different individuals and cracked jokes just as he did when he was a kid. He did not sit alone at lunch; not once. Surrounded by company he saw beauty in silence when others chose to speak. This was the underlining fact about him; his silent discoveries in all of us every day. It was as though his mouth and mind were disconnected. His mouth pleased those around him, but his mind constantly in thought about the sequences and imperfections of himself and his day. To him, he was quiet; to him, there was nothing to actually laugh about; and to him, people were cursed by their own ignorance. This was the inside, the beginning of a change that occurred after so much with his family and friends. He forced his family to deal with a punishment for how they acted on a daily basis; it is a lesson to all of us. He wrote a letter, unspecific to any one person but valuable to all. It was about the perception of truth and that when a person takes for granted the time to get to know someone internally; they have the misfortune of not being able to understand the possibility of one’s actions. With this I say don’t wait for a tragedy to create a miracle. Open your eyes and start seeing the true colors of the people that brighten your lives. Thank you.”