On the Roof

Mr. Howard spotted the student finally. He was sitting on the ground, with a set of crayons beside him, and writing on the wall with the red one. His fair curls were moving from his shoulders with the wind and falling back down lightly. It was a peaceful sight, nothing like the English teacher expected.

He looked at the words on the wall. The writing was very neat, with no useless ornaments or tendency to unreadable lines. It was unlike the handwriting the teacher was used to. Paul’s essays were usually written messily, as if finished the last moment before deadline. But this time he put a great, unnerving effort into writing nicely. It looked like an attempt at making the meaning of the words overcome their form.

THE WORLD SWALLOWED MY HEART

Mr. Howard walked closer slowly. Paul was sitting very close to the edge of the roof, and Mr. Howard didn’t want to risk making him feel too uncomfortable.

“Paul,” he called out softly.

The student turned his head and scanned the teacher from head to toe quickly.

“Hello, Mr. Howard,” he said quietly.

The teacher felt encouraged by the friendly greeting. It sounded like despite of his suicidal intention the young man wasn’t refusing company. Mr. Howard squatted down to him.

“How do you feel?”

Paul flashed him a soft smile and shrugged. Then he continued drawing, putting a period after the last word of his statement.

“I’m sure you can read, Mr. Howard,” the young man laughed softly.

Mr. Howard considered the whole situation pretty contradictory. Paul was on the top of the school building, ready to jump. Or so the information from his terrified best friend James said. When the student told him, not seeing any way how he himself would be able to stop his friend from committing the thing, the teacher hurried to find the suicidal guy immediately. But now that he was with him, he didn’t see anyone who’d fit the image of a person with intention of killing himself. Paul was the same quiet, composed person as Mr. Howard knew him from his classes.

And since Paul didn’t look like he was going to commit suicide at all, Mr. Howard started to doubt.

“Your friend James told me I’d find you here.”

“You wanted to talk to me, sir?” His grey eyes pierced the teacher, and his lips curved into another half-smile. This time it didn’t look very genuine.

“He said… he was worried about you… he said you told him…”

“Don’t speak more,” Paul interrupted softly. “I hoped he wouldn’t tell anyone, but I guess I chose the wrong words for telling him. I shocked him too much probably.”

Mr. Howard frowned, a little perplexed. “Paul, you don’t really want to jump, do you?”

“I do,” the boy said with a soft sigh.

“But why, Paul?” Mr. Howard asked, suddenly scared just as much as James was. Paul’s life was in their hands now. James did the best he could, and the rest was up to Mr. Howard as it seemed. He was the one named to hug Paul’s life and to not let it slip.

“That’s a good question, teacher,” the boy responded. Suddenly he was just a child in Mr. Howard’s eyes. A beautiful child of the fucked up world, that’s what he was.

“You can’t do it if you don’t know the answer to that question.”

Mr. Howard watched as the boy shook his head softly and looked up at the words on the wall. “Let’s make a deal, teacher. If you give me a reason to not do it, I won’t.”

Paul put his life in my hands, the teacher thought nervously. I became a teacher in order to teach, not to deal with things of this kind. Why did James go to me, why me from all the teachers in the staff? Damn this.

“You don’t have a reason to live, I see.”

Paul wasn’t even looking at him. Was he paying attention at all? He was staring at the sky now, watching birds sit down on wires and fly away again. Mr. Howard watched too, but not the chirping ones.

Paul was a bird himself, he’d always been one. He was one of the most excellent students in Mr. Howard’s class, very concentrated and quiet. When he said something it fit and his observations often made the teacher think for hours. Paul was a man of young genius, Mr. Howard believed. He knew Paul was worth saving; any student would be, of course, but this particular one was a special case. For Mr. Howard at least.

“Let’s talk then, Paul,” he said and crossed his legs Indian style as he sat down beside the student. “Is your family not a reason to live?”

Paul looked at him for a moment, then back at the birds. “How should they be a reason for me to live?”

“They’d be unhappy if you left them in such a way,” Mr. Howard said, having hard time choosing the right words in such a serious situation. He knew Paul lived in a harmonic, healthy family. He had no problems in school either, his classmates either avoided him or liked him. Mr. Howard really didn’t understand why Paul would want to end his life when it was on such a good way. Not everyone was that lucky.

“I love my family,” Paul said. “Look at those birds, Mr. Howard,” he smiled, excitedly pointing to one of them.

Mr. Howard frowned when Paul changed the topic so suddenly.

“Are they not a reason to live?”

“The birds?” Paul looked at him a little surprised and smiled. “How can watching them give a sense to my life?”

“Well, you could take care of them then.”

Paul smiled and laughed happily. “Do they look like they can’t take care of themselves? They look pretty content to me.”

“You could give them a home. Like your parents to you. Or your girlfriend.”

Mr. Howard was gazing at the boy, his gaze not being returned. He’d never noticed how femininely beautiful Paul’s face looked. His features were so soft, skin so smooth and his lips looked like a cherry, now pouring those heavy words.

“By home, do you mean a cage?”

“No,” Mr. Howard said softly. “I mean your heart.”

Paul turned his head to look at his teacher, finding him just inches away from his fragile, cracked self.

“I think you didn’t take the possibility that my heart is a cage too into consideration,” he said softly, as if he was the teacher explaining to his student. “Anyway, I think that the birds have their own home and don’t need me to give them a new one. That’s firstly. And secondly, the home my parents are giving me is not forever. You don’t want to fool me into thinking they’ll live forever, do you?” He went quiet for a moment. “Thirdly,” he added on, redirecting his gaze from his teacher’s face back to the treetops and wires, “I’ve never had a girlfriend.”

“I…” Mr. Howard started but Paul had one more thing to say.

He broke in in a calm voice, just asking for explanation nicely. “Do you think that having a partner gives a sense to your life?”

“Yeah,” the teacher responded spontaneously. “It does.”

“How?” Paul asked, genuinely intrigued as to why would his teacher be so sure. He looked at his face, noticing freckles around his nose. They made Paul a little more relaxed and comfortable around his over a decade older teacher. “It would mean that single people don’t have that sense.”

“They don’t… I mean… they do,” Mr. Howard babbled out, tripping over own words and thoughts a bit. “I mean, you always love someone. You don’t necessarily need a lover for that.”

“Aha,” Paul thought. “Are you saying that loving someone, anyone, is enough?”

“For me, it is,” Mr. Howard said. He reached into his pocket and took out a small box. He opened it, revealing a silver engagement ring. He thought that it was a good example of how one finds happiness in life. “I’m going to ask my girlfriend soon. For me this is a reason.”

Paul was looking at the ring for a while. He gave a soft smile but Mr. Howard could tell that it was fake. The boy hugged his knees and returned to watching the sky. “It’s not enough, Mr. Howard.” The teacher immediately regretted showing the ring to the boy. It seemed that it made him very sad. He put his hand on Paul’s back and rubbed it softly.

“Maybe you just feel alone, Paul. Everyone feels like that sometimes.”

There was a moment of silence. Mr. Howard’s hand stayed on Paul’s back because the boy didn’t protest against it and it made the teacher feel like it was a good sign.

“I don’t want to die, Mr. Howard,” Paul said then, leaning his forehead against his own knees to hide his face from the world. To hide it from his teacher and his companion in the suicide scene.

“You don’t have to, not now,” Mr. Howard said gently, leaning closer to the boy. He wanted to hug him now, make him feel safe.

“I must,” Paul said. “I don’t want to go on either.”

“You’re too young for such thoughts,” he sighed and gently wrapped an arm around the boy. “Not wanting to go on is not a good enough reason. You’re an intelligent guy, Paul, don’t tell me you think it is.”

“But teacher…” Paul sighed, gasping a little, as if he was trying to stop sobs by choking them with air. “I have no reason to stay. All I see is void. I don’t know what I want in my life. There is no future for me. Everyone I know has a dream or two, something to live for when everything else fails.”

“You don’t have dreams, Paul?”

“I do, but…”

“There’s no but. You’re saying you have no reason to stay. But you have no reason to die either, right?”

It is true, Mr. Howard thought when he heard Paul sigh and felt him lean into him.

“I just don’t know. I don’t know anything.”

“You want someone else to tell you? You are so young, free! Grip your life,” Mr. Howard told the boy, running his fingers into his hair. He liked his mum doing that to him when he was a kid, and he hoped it would soothe Paul too and make him feel safe, at least for a while. Because it seemed like Paul, despite of having a decent life, felt unsafe and lost.

But the boy only shook his head and pleaded. “Could you please say my name few more times, teacher?”

Mr. Howard felt he was on a good way to stopping Paul from turning his suicidal intention into reality.

“Paul, Paul,” he murmured. “Paul…” He leaned so close till his lips brushed Paul’s hair. “Paul,” he whispered.

“I don’t want to make decisions, Mr. Howard,” Paul whispered, resting in the teacher’s arms. “I shouldn’t have told anyone. I don’t want a show. I want to go in quiet, in complete… peace. Like those birds.”

Mr. Howard frowned when he heard the boy say that. “Listen to me!” he said a little firmer, so that the boy would finally realize this wasn’t a game, and that he couldn’t just jump off a roof anytime he wished. “I don’t want you to die, Paul.”

He felt Paul’s fingers grip his suit, and suddenly he wasn’t sure anymore if he was just trying to save the life of his student or if there was something else, something more going on.

“What do you want me to do then, Mr. Howard? I will do anything; I don’t want to do anything for myself anymore.”

Mr. Howard was silent. With his forehead against Paul’s hair while Paul’s was against his arm, he felt he had him safely within his protection. No, the boy wouldn’t jump now. But holding his body wasn’t the same as holding his soul.

He thought hard. He thought for a long while. Paul wanted so much from him. Mr. Howard had never felt more responsible for something, for someone in his whole life. He thought about what it was that he, a man in his thirties, wanted the most. What was his greatest dream? It had to be something big, something that would guarantee a sense of life to the boy in his arms.

When he was little, he’d often fly kites, big, big kites in shapes of octopuses at sea shores. He dreamt of living in a beach house, with a big blue octopus in his aquarium, and of flying kites with his significant other. It was a beautiful image even now, when he was on the way to the second, harder breathable half of his life. Sometimes he used the childhood memory when he felt sad, when he was alone or when his girlfriend got him mad and his job didn’t go well.

“I want you to fly,” he said quietly, leaving out the part about kites.

The boy gasped. “How? I can’t…”

“You can,” the elder male interrupted the younger one. He couldn’t help himself but sniff in the scent of his hair, intoxicating all his senses more. “Just imagine you’re a bird.”

“But teacher…”

“Hush, I don’t want to hear a word about that it’s impossible. I thought you are better than that, Paul.”

Paul went silent. Eventually, he shifted a little in the teacher’s arms to look into his eyes. “Teacher, I need some help with it.”

“Okay.”

“Could you…” the boy whispered; his gaze fell down on his teacher’s lips. Mr. Howard panicked a little, this wasn’t what he meant.

“Paul…” he tried to stop him.

“… kiss me?” Paul finished anyway.

“Paul, how would that help anything?” the teacher shook his head softly, trying a rational way on the boy. “If you can’t do it on your own, no one will help you. Birds fly with just their own wings and it’s their own wings that bring them to other birds.”

Paul’s eyes didn’t lose the sparkle of desire the teacher managed to light up. Those words only made it stronger. The boy’s lush lips were painfully close to the teacher’s, and Mr. Howard was sure that in Paul’s head they were already kissing.

He watched the boy stand up and walk back to the wall. He took another crayon, and changed the period into a comma, then finished his previous statement.

BUT I WILL BEAT INSIDE IT.

“Is that enough?” Paul asked as he dropped the crayon into the colorful box again. He saw his teacher’s hesitation and continued. “You don’t have to answer. But why are you telling me to fly when you yourself can’t?”

“Are you saying that because I didn’t kiss you? I’m getting married, Paul.”

“Yet you hug me so close, teacher. If you don’t love me, why would you want to save my life?”

“You’re a human being. And my student. It is natural, it is required even, for me to care about you.”

“If you care about me as a human being, then why can’t you kiss me as a human being? The student part means nothing; student is just a role for a human.”

The teacher hesitated. “I’m getting married,” he repeated.

“Does that mean your kisses belong to her and no one else? Isn’t that a little close-minded, teacher?”

“And you’re a boy,” Mr. Howard added quickly. “And my student,” he pointed out again.

Paul hung his head. “A boy. A student. A husband. How many more labels can you come with?” He walked closer to the teacher and stopped so close that if he leaned in their chests would touch. “But I understand you. I’m leaving the school, teacher. I will leave everyone behind and become homeless. I hope the world will commit its suicide on me soon.”

The student stepped away again, zipping his hoodie up. But he stopped halfway when the teacher’s hand gripped his fingers around the zip.

“You have so little care for the people who love you that you’d leave them in blink of an eye?” the teacher growled quietly. He hated the boy’s decision, his determination. He was jealous because the boy possessed something he didn’t, something he dreamt to have but never found a way to get. The boundaries of freedom were flying around them, like feather of abandoned wings.

“Should I love the people I know more than the people I don’t know? Go love your one and only. I wonder what the point of such love could be. It is selfish,” the young male frowned sadly and pushed the teacher’s hand away from his chest.

The teacher grabbed the boy’s clothes and pulled him close.

“Please, let me go. It’s too late for saving me; don’t be so stressed about it. I’m dying already.” The boy protested, fighting him off. “We all are dying, teacher. I don’t care!”

“Shut up!” the teacher yelled. “Are you calm only when I hold you,” he pressed him closer despite of the boy’s struggle, “this tight?!”

The student’s lips pressed to the other male’s firmly, his hands cupped his face from either side to rape him into a kiss. The teacher gave in after a mere moment; he kissed back passionately, not giving a damn about that the one he was so desperately claiming was of same gender. They were human beings! There was only one ruling principle in the world of humans, and it wasn’t gender, or social status, or any to-be-given promises.

“I fucking love you,” he panted against the richly red lips. “Satisfied now?!” he growled and gripped his body and hair harder. “Love you, love you, love you. Fucked up, chained bird.”

“What way are we gonna fly?” the boy breathed out.

“Out of our selves.”