Standing Still For Far Too Long

The floor creaked and he saw a mouse struggling to cross one of the many gashes in the floor boards. The walls consisted of gloomy paintings that depicted once happy sunrises and genre scenes from the early naturalists and realists. The sleeping quarters smelt of stale bread and molding black bean soup. He could only guess that the earlier dinner from that night was still sitting on the stove.

He knew, in fact, that it was the same exact food that fed them yesterday, and the days before that. Everyone always received one bowl, no more and no less.

Some days he would feel like Oliver Twist, and he knew that he wasn’t the only one. It was the only book that he and nearly every boy in his division had ever heard; less could actually read it. He had the best vocabulary of them all; he slaved away at every sentence, figuring out each word by using context clues and stealing glances at the glistening dictionary in the Warden’s office.

But he never even considered walking towards the front of the kitchen and asking for more. He admired Oliver for his boldness, and he hated himself for not being able to match it.

In the evenings, Gerard Way would get up in the middle of the night and read to the younger boys. He could hear little Windy Meadows sniffling in the corner; he was no doubt wrapped tightly inside of his bed sheets listening intently to every word that left Gerard’s mouth. He was one of the unfortunates; the children who had actually been born at the orphanage and named by the doctor and his mildly peculiar nurse.

That night, Gerard would start over.

“Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.”

Gerard had been born at the orphanage, but unlike Windy Meadows, his mother had cared enough to give him a name. He continued to read to the little ones, he took on this responsibility by himself. He was the oldest of them, being 15, and no one frowned upon it. No one, that is, except for the Missus. Mr. Tom, the head of the boys division, would sit inside of his office sometimes and listen to him read. Dr. Steepleton would sometimes come in while he was reading and check up on the children. They didn’t mind as much when they were distracted. Nurse Edna would accompany him and occasionally come up behind Gerard and pat his back encouragingly.

But the Warden did none of those things. She usually told him to stop and get into bed, and that was exactly what she would do on that night. But she would have more than just that to say.

He was sitting on his little stool at the front of the sleeping quarters when he heard the floor creek, and the when he saw the mouse run, and when his nostrils took in the smells that he had grown used to. He knew immediately that it was the Warden stalking down the hallway towards him in particular.

Moments after the first signs of hearing her, he saw her burst through the door.

“Gerard, should I be surprised? Hell no, I shouldn’t.”

She always answered her own questions, everyone learned not to answer her or even talk much to her. Every question asked by the Warden was usually meant for the Warden alone, and no one else.

“Get to bed ye’ dumb shit. You have a big fuckin’ day tomorrow. Someone is joining our little gang bang here.” She let out a loud cackle.

Big whoop, Gerard thought.

The Warden could clearly see his disinterest in the subject and plastered a sly grin onto her face, “You should be more excited, boy.”

Gerard turned to her and slightly raised his eyebrow, but he did not utter a word.

“He’s your age.”

And with that, she turned around and exited the room, leaving a trail of creeks and frightened mice behind her. She also left a dumbfounded Gerard sitting on his reading stool.

Someone my age, He thought, someone my age?

He was broken away from his thoughts by the whining of little Windy Meadows from the corner bed, “C’mon Gee, finish the chapter. We all know that you’re not done.” Indeed, the children had been read to enough to know these things.

“The orphan of a workhouse--the humble, half-starved drudge--to be cuffed and buffeted through the world--despised by all, and pitied by none. Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder.”

The first chapter was finished and Gerard was free to lay in bed with his thoughts.

Someone my age.

And he fell asleep dreaming of that someone who had no face and no features. That someone was simply a shadow in Gerard’s dream. The friendly shadow that he hoped would help lift the sinister clouds away from his life.