Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Write in the HISTORICAL genre (05/03/07)
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TITLE: Just Thinking | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tim George
05/04/07 -
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Pauline nodded absently and looked across the room at her son. The boy sat cross legged on the floor alone quietly stacking cards. Of course he was almost always alone. He seldom interacted in what could pass for reasonable conversation. Questions or comments made to him were always followed by excruciatingly long pauses. So long that those seeking to interact with the boy often gave up in frustration.
“I’ve heard all of this before. Stupid, slow, dim-witted … retarded. He’s only eight years old. What will come of him?”
The other woman stood and straightened her long dress; a typical German air of assuredness etched into her features. “Pauline. This is not the end of the world. The boy can function with training and patience. But you have to accept he will never become what you and Hermann hoped for when he was born. It is a mystery but it is true.”
As the women parted, the boy watched through the bay window as his school teacher made her way down the street. He felt his mother’s fine hand on his shoulder and he turned to hug her. “Do I still have to go to school now Momma? Can I not stay home with you?”
“No! You will go to school. You must learn how to act around others. You must learn how to blend in or you life will be even harder. You must try not to act so different; even if you don’t understand what they are talking about in class.”
Apparently satisfied with his mother’s answer the boy jumped up and headed out to their large front porch that looked out on the busy Munich street where they lived. The boy again sat cross-legged and pulled a silver compass from his pocket. Holding it in the palm of his hand he moved his hand from right to left; never taking his eyes off of the wobbling pointer suspended in the mechanism.
Pauline watched from inside the house and smiled briefly as she felt the strong arms of her husband surround her narrow waist from behind. She lifted his hand and kissed it gently before turning to speak to Hermann. “What do you think he sees? He stares at that compass you gave him for hours. He takes it apart and puts it back together a hundred times at a stretch.”
Hermann sighed, “I gave up trying to guess what he’s thinking a long time ago. I heard the last part of what our visitor had to say from the back. Perhaps …” He paused and waited till his lip quit quivering. “Perhaps, she is right. Our boy is just not right in the head. At least he is good with this hands. He can serve some purpose in the electrical plant. He can wrap wire or something useful.”
Pauline forced herself to agree and turned with her husband to observe their son once more. To their right was a perfect house of cards. A thing of geometric perfection built by the hands of a retarded boy. On the porch, the boy sat staring at the compass. He wasn’t moving at all now. Just staring. Oblivious to the world around him. Unmoved by the things that should excite any normal little boy. Simply staring mindlessly at a compass needle that now stood perfectly motionless.
Tears welled up in both parents eyes as they considered the world their son would face. A world to which he would owe everything for his care and to which he could offer very little of constructive value back to. A world that would constantly remind him of how better, smarter, and more capable it was than him. Oh, that some of their Jewish faith remained. But they had both abandoned that long before.
“If God was really good, as we were taught as children, he would have given us a son that could accomplish something.” Hermann spat the words out and stormed out of the room.
The mailman walked up at that moment and handed the boy a stack of letters to take inside. “Well, good afternoon young Albert. Looks like the Einstein’s have a lot of mail today. Good day.” Albert ran inside and deposited the stack into his mother’s hands.
“What have you been doing my son?”
“Nothing much, Momma. Just thinking.”
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