Var

I had never seen him look so miserable before besides experiencing the "rudiments" of his approaching maturity, as he liked to have called them. The lines that bore into the oval visage told his stories alone, but he always said that if they were complimented with spoken details, then others would fully understand the altitudes of his dementia. He had told me because I was there when these horrendous incidents happened. And now I am here to share them with you as a memoir of Nicolas' life due to the fact that he bit his tongue off a couple weeks ago, and does not have that much longer to live...

Nicolas and I met when we were both 4-years-old, but the first time I had gone over his house was when he turned 5. We were outside playing, pretending that we were soldiers fighting in Denmark with his dog, Rugby, as our sled-dog considering it was mid-January. Plastic straps that Nicolas had cut off his backpack were tied to the collie and then to the wooden sled that had been abandoned for several years beforehand. We thought that everything was sturdy enough, until Rugby saw a rabbit sprint across the street and took off after it, tearing free from the cheap harness keeping him contained. Only Nicolas' dog didn't make it to the other side of the road with his pal Bugs Bunny; he was hit by a truck carrying numerous loads of lumber.

Quick with his actions, Nicolas ran over to discover that Rugby was dead and rushed inside to get his mother. A moment later, though, he came back outside alone with a snot-covered face and tears pouring down his cheeks, and in his arms was an old quilt that was probably taken from his basement. I asked him what he was doing, and he grumbled, "Mum says I have to get Rugby off the road, says that only men do the dirty jobs and not any women." Nicolas' father left him and his mother when he turned 2, so that meant he was the only male in the house, and the only one that had to get their hands filthy.

That was the day Nicolas was engraved with 2 wrinkles bordering his eyebrows, and a stray line just below his lower lip from pouting so much. The marks that formed a grid on his forehead were from his years in prep school, and this major event that I am about to tell you probably caused the most traumatic injuries to his brain, as well...

I had only learned about what happened there because this was during a time I was responsible over him as a legal guardian, due to his mother dying of an alcohol overdose and his father dying in war. He had no one else, supposedly. He and I were about the same age, of course, but my parents were too busy working to even care for another child. I was gushed to about the story when I was informed to pick him up from the main office of the prep school. Nicolas' face glowed a pale white, and his eyes crossed and un-crossed with the overwhelming delusion he was confronted with. When I sat down in a chair across from him, he explained the piercing humiliation that struck him that day. Nicolas was at lunch, bringing his food over to a table, when "an oppressor and his retinue" decided to swarm him with all of their mischief. The leader called him out and knocked the tray out of his hands, but Nicolas said that was the least bit of trouble they caused. The "retinue" had dug their claws into Nicolas at one point, to restrain him from fleeing, and the "oppressor" did what any bully would do to completely shame their victim for life: moon them.

It was only a month after that, when I discovered Nicolas was skipping his classes and failing in all of his academics. His trouble then proceeded into vandalizing the school walls and teachers there. No sooner than later was Nicolas expelled and warded off into a mental hospital for events that I cannot even explain without gagging in the slightest bit.

The innocent boy was starved of his childhood, and quickly morphed into the cranky old lunatic he never dreamed of being...

Looking down at him now, I can only see pain mauled into his face. He probably wishes that I would sit next to him, but the only chair in the room was taken by his soul mate: sorrow. She'd never let me comfort him.

The only thing I could do when he opened his eyes, was to mutter "var," because he would soon become that.

And he understood that it meant "was."