Everyday Canvas

A Neighbor

G is such a small boy but can emit such huge, booming sounds. At the age of eight, he is almost a baritone to his mother's soprano-shriek, turning stunned heads. People think it is disturbing and impolite. Despite the warnings and scoldings, he uses his loud voice often, shouting across the playground, the mall, the house, and possibly the entire neighborhood. No matter how much G tries to control his voice, he finds out he cannot do it, but that is not the only thing he cannot control. He cannot control his tantrums or petit mal seizures either. He is perplexed and furious at what fate has dealt as his share in life.

The last time I saw G, his face was tight and pale, and his mother was breathing hard, her breath pushing out between open lips. I realized she was trying to hold back her tears. Then I saw G's arm. Despite the large towel wrapped around it, blood oozed through the rip in his sleeve.

I couldn't hold back the remark "He's bleeding!"

"It is just a scratch," G said in his full-toned contralto.

"He stabbed himself," his mother said. "I am taking him to the emergency room."

I asked if I could drive them. They both refused my help, and G said he didn't want his mother mollycoddling him while I drove. I insisted, but G became distraught. Powerless, the mother shook her head in negation.So, I stepped back, thinking G was made in the womb fearfully and wonderfully,* so his mother could gain all the kudos from the Most High.



* Psalm 139:13-15


From the first page of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain:
The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service -- she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear:"


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Prompt: We are going to do a little word play with this prompt. Open a page in the dictionary or a book and write down the first three adjectives you see. Now, tell us about someone you know who personifies these traits in some way.