Wilhem had always been a peculiar child. Observing the world around him he developed more and more abstract notions of reality and its workings; he thought of things his peers couldn’t begin to fathom, or were not willing to try to. When he felt the urge to express his ideas to his peers he would often end up insulting and scaring them away. This is likely because he speaks unusually, as though he shared the brain of a man who lived four of his lifetimes.This perpetual cycle of alienation and social ineptitude had followed him ever since he was a young boy. 16 years of transitioning from home-schooling to public schooling has done nothing to help him change for the better. Again, just like other day, Wilhem had a bad day – his odd sense of expression and communication got him yet another lecture from his teacher.
“Now Wilhem, how many times must we discuss this issue?”
Wilhem sat upon a stool, wondering as to why he had to stay after class. He wondered why this was happening and what it all meant. Why was it always him who had to have a lecture?
“Issue? Mrs.Kren, what do you mean by issue?
The nostrils of Mrs. Kren flared as she reacted to Wilhem’s innocent question. Apparently, she didn’t seem to consider his question innocent as he had thought.
“Now Wilhem, we’ve discussed this matter before, at least twice a week since school started, in fact! It’s been months now and you haven’t progressed even a bit! I have spoken with your mother and you regularly visit the counselor – surely you must know the conflict.”
Mrs. Kren’s eyes fell coldly down on Wilhem’s being, a sense of repulsion so obvious in its malice that Wilhem couldn’t help but wince a bit. Wilhem’s thoughts stopped for a moment.  He began to think of the words Mrs. Kren told him now, and then all of those others time the have spoken to each other. He tried to understand. Wilhem’s inability to interact with his peers often frightens the shyier and meek children and worsens the behavior of the unruly and rambunctious ones. Such so in fact, that some parents have threatened to storm the School Board to petition that “problematic children” like Wilhem be separated from their children. Just a few days ago, Wilhem somehow managed to infuriate a troubled boy by asking him why he hides behind his yelling, a trait of the troubled boy that he is secretly embarrassed by.
Wilhem’s thoughts for the remainder of the day gravitated toward the quandary of his inability to connect with his peers. He tried to understand what he was doing wrong and how that affected the thoughts and feelings of his peers towards him.
He thought: I like to talk about the smell of the air, the taste of colors and other things. They always say “why” or “how”. Maybe they don’t know what my words mean, but if that’s the case – why?
Wilhem lost a great deal of sleep trying to dissect the nature of his issue and comprehend the implications of it. He tossed and turned in his large bed, often waking up and making unintelligible moans as to express his concern or discomfort about his predicament. He was truly beginning to understand the implications of his conflict but simply couldn’t come to a means to resolve it. How would he stop being himself? How would he stop expressing and communicating the way he was currently? He derailed into short spurts of unpleasant yelps, belligerent and aggressive tantrums, and a state of pessimism, self-loathing, and doubt. All of this had lasted for hours, which proved to be his undoing the following day.
Wilhem woke up with a thumping head and a racing heart, his mind may have tired itself out but his body continued to act erratic. He didn’t want to go to school that day.
“Wilhem, hunny, are you okay?” You missed the bus.”
His worried mother spoke to him after knocking timidly at his door, surprised to see how pale he was, how lifeless he seemed while lying in his bed.
Wilhem could only groan disgruntledly, if he had spoken it would have been in a language his mother, or any person for that matter, simply couldn’t understand. Wilhem’s mother explained to him, despite his protest, the he had to try to go to school, that he missed too many days and would only worsen his issues at school if he hid from his problems as we was trying to now. Seeing how upset her son was, Wilhem’s mother spoke whilst attempting to keep a motherly face, trying desperately to keep her tears at bay.
Wilhem eventually went to school, his mood nothing like that of the day, not clear or shining, but filled with negativity that could have tainted the cleanest of waters. Swallowing deeply, he imagined keeping a demon from leaving his mouth, forcing it back to his stomach where it would disintegrate. Wilhem tried like no other to simply keep to himself and not get agitated. The amount of willpower he used was that of a tree enduring the brutal onslaught of clashing winds amidst a tumultuous thunderstorm.
“Hey Silly-Willy, how about those sounds you keep making to yourself when you’re all alone?”
A group of schoolmates of Wilhem’s crowded him, encircling him as though he were trapped like a prisoner behind bars of a cage. The demon crept slowly up from his stomach. Wilhem’s throat grew a lump that he could not swallow, nothing worse could of happened now, he thought. Please, just go away, leave me be, for I am not me, Wilhem thought forcing himself to think of the dew that fell from the greenery of his rain-forest sanctuary. Let this canopy block out the sun and its infringing rays; let this canopy block out the moon and its mocking light.
“I mean no harm, you guys. I’m not feeling good, I can’t play.”
Wilhem’s legs trembled, racing along his panicky heart. His nervousness ran like sweat that poured from his face, showing the true extent of his fear. He could only hope at this point. . .
Wilhem’s body laid shivering, limp, and numb. Each punch and kick he had endured took more and more air from his body, leaving him barely conscious. He couldn’t tell if his vision was blurred because of his stinging tears that pained his eyes or if were that incomprehensible sense of exhaustion that overwhelmed his senses. After his recovery, Wilhem truly changed. That lump in his throat would not rise nor fall, his stomach was empty. The demon had escaped to his mind where it took control of Wilhem’s thoughts, feelings, and actions when it saw fit, toying around with the existence of Wilhem, such a hapless, naïve child.
Walking back from a relatively peaceful day without having to endure the fact of his apparent foolishness, Wilhem stumbles upon a stray cat that, for reasons he couldn’t possible understand, reminded him of how he was when those boys overwhelmed him. He seethed with a malevolent flame that couldn’t be quelled, his anger and hatred spilled over the brim of his capacity to control. The demon began to play.
In a hurried pace, Wilhem tried to find a plank of wood or a rock that would fit into his palm. He would do the cat, as pathetic and unable to express itself, as those boys did to him. Wilhem took that poor cat out of its obvious misery, rather, that was what he tried to tell himself as he cast the rock at the cat, as the fists and foots of those boys had fell onto his body.
It took Wilhem weeks before he was able to speak of his actions he committed against the cat. This had only happened because he had recently been approached by a fellow classmate that empathized with him, speaking  with him during lunch and recess about things he thought only he could understand or appreciate.
“Sometimes I can feel when it will rain, when the clouds will come together and cry and how the trees will reach for the rain to catch and dance in it.”
Wilhem spontaneously, without any sense or clear understanding, cries in front of his stranger, who reveals herself as Levi, a girl much like Wilhem. Like Wilhem, Levi suffered from a deficiency to make friends and connect with her peers. In fact, she goes on to explain how she came to Wilhem’s school.
“I was teased a lot for speaking about nature and thinking I was a part of it. The other kids would call me names that I could not understand, which made me feel wrong. You’re not alone Wilhem. We’re friends.”
As Wilhem continued to cry after hearing her brief explanation, Levi smiles warmly to him and places her hands on his shoulder to comfort him. They continued to speak until the bell rung signaling for them to come back to resume class, they continued thinking even after not eating lunch for some days, they continued talking about their strange, abstract thoughts until they were questioned.
“Why do you two talk so much to each other?”
Wilhem and Levi’s conversation about the vastness of space was interrupted by a quizzical student who had noticed that they were spending a great deal of time together.
  “We are friends. Friends talk to other, don’t they?”
Levi smiles brightly as Wilhem continues on his thoughts about space.