CHANGE OF HABITS
Word Count: 361
He was just an old man who liked children, that’s all. Caught up in the witch hunts of the eighties.
“I know you didn’t,” said his wife, Mary, “I know you couldn’t,” and she stood by him up through the third year of his sentence then left him and went to live in a state she picked by the spin of a dial.
When he got out he was even older, broken in three different parts. His intellectual mind understood the mis-justice but his pure heart never could. His physical self he just took to a place across country where no one remembered and so couldn’t whisper or point.
He walked with a limp and his eyesight was poor. His bones were a rack for his clothes. He traversed sidewalks with a shuffle and drag making wide circles around the children as if he were playing a game. He worked as a sweeper with an office cleaning crew working dark to dawn. He did his job well and he shopped early morning for groceries then went home and ate and slept through most of the day. On Saturdays he’d go to the library and on Sundays he’d ride a bicycle out to the park and sit on a blanket and read. That was the sum of his life now, the sum of all his degrees.
One night he was sent under new contract, a middle school in the center of town. He was assigned the second floor classrooms and his knees shook as he went up the stairs. He flicked on the lights in the hall and along with the vision came the chalk scents, the cold metal feel of the lockers, the buzzing of the fluorescent bulbs. He opened the first door on his right and went into the classroom. He left the cleaning cart out in the hall.
Voices and sounds came like breezes that swept through his mind, picking up leaves and memories and making them real. He stood at the desk of the teacher. Filled each empty seat that he faced.
“Open to page 373,” he said right out loud, and then he started to cry.
wow, heartbreaking, complex tale, susan. reads like a character sketch or more for a novel … on a touchy subject. enjoyed the heartfulness.
Thanks, Marcus. This poor man seemed to need to be heard. There are plenty just like him in our reality I’d say.
Hi Susan – a voice for those who could not prove innocence beyond a doubt. I loved the way you brought us into his life, present and past. S.
Thank you, Shirley. There’s always doubt when it’s left up to a jury of twelve people, though it’s the best we can do I suppose.
Susan, I’m amazed at the seemingly endless number of characters you conjure and capture so deftly.
Hah! George, I think it’s the writer’s version of multiple personality disorder.