Status: still in progress, updates coming whenever i've got the inspiration.
The Test
the fake sound of progress
I had been assigned to meet and interview William that summer, his name marked with an asterisk for special circumstances. The school had allowed him an interview on a separate day from the other students, and I had ventured into work on a Saturday.
The instant we met, I observed that the boy's face hardly matched his age, his soundless presence and innocent facial features reminiscent of that of a child much younger than fifteen, despite his impressive height. He refused to utter even a single word for the entirety of the interview, but I refused to push him beyond his delicate boundaries and comfort zone.
I quizzed him with basic, conversational questions, some factual, some personal, and allowed him to scrawl his responses onto lined paper which I planned to collect at the end. His words were elegant, his language extending well beyond the expected level for his year group. His maturity was a stark constant to his gentle, almost infantile silence, and it allowed me to begin to notice his eyes.
His emotions would run wordlessly though his eyes, and he had the power to tell stories with a glance, a gift I had never experienced or seen ever before.
But I felt detached from him, and I found myself listening to his ballpoint pen scribbling in the silence, and watching the rise and fall of his frail looking torso. The bars around this delicate child's cage were placed together ever so closely, and I was unable to reach inside.
I saw a helpless, speechless boy, beaten down by the world and hardly accepted or appreciated even though he deserved to be, trapped in a glass cage where he was seen but not heard. I connected with him, seeing myself in his thoughts, and I sensed an emptiness in his written word. I wanted to set him free, like a caterpillar's transformation to a butterfly, and I resolved to find the keys to his glass cage.
The instant we met, I observed that the boy's face hardly matched his age, his soundless presence and innocent facial features reminiscent of that of a child much younger than fifteen, despite his impressive height. He refused to utter even a single word for the entirety of the interview, but I refused to push him beyond his delicate boundaries and comfort zone.
I quizzed him with basic, conversational questions, some factual, some personal, and allowed him to scrawl his responses onto lined paper which I planned to collect at the end. His words were elegant, his language extending well beyond the expected level for his year group. His maturity was a stark constant to his gentle, almost infantile silence, and it allowed me to begin to notice his eyes.
His emotions would run wordlessly though his eyes, and he had the power to tell stories with a glance, a gift I had never experienced or seen ever before.
But I felt detached from him, and I found myself listening to his ballpoint pen scribbling in the silence, and watching the rise and fall of his frail looking torso. The bars around this delicate child's cage were placed together ever so closely, and I was unable to reach inside.
I saw a helpless, speechless boy, beaten down by the world and hardly accepted or appreciated even though he deserved to be, trapped in a glass cage where he was seen but not heard. I connected with him, seeing myself in his thoughts, and I sensed an emptiness in his written word. I wanted to set him free, like a caterpillar's transformation to a butterfly, and I resolved to find the keys to his glass cage.