Why Do We All Sit Alone?

Micah was a quiet boy.  He spent most of his time trying to be unnoticed.  Micah was perhaps one of the most talented boys of his age but he put a great deal of effort into making sure that no one knew it.  Micah didn’t want attention or recognition, no; Micah was perfectly content with being anonymous.  Micah was alone.    That is, he was, before Elsie.
         Elsie was special.  Elsie always seemed to know things about people; things that were not readily apparent.  When Elsie looked at someone she could tell whatever they were feeling or whatever they were hiding.  Elsie was curious, and Elsie was perceptive.
         So when Elsie met Micah, she knew he was different.  She knew that there was more to him than he let on.  Elsie wanted to know more about Micah.  Elsie would watch him and think to herself ‘I’m not going to let that boy alone’.  And just like that it was decided.
         One day she marched right up to Micah and stuck out her hand.
         “Hi, my name’s Elsie,” she said, flashing a bright, sparkling smile.
         “I’m Micah,” he stammered back, reluctantly shaking Elsie’s hand.  Micah couldn’t help but be puzzled by Elsie.  No one had ever taken it upon themselves to be this forward with him before.  He wasn’t quite sure if he was intimidated or impressed by Elsie’s confidence and so he didn’t know what to make of her.
         “Why do you sit alone?” inquired Elsie, keeping her eyes locked into his.
         Micah paused for a moment.  He had never really thought about it before.  He didn’t sit alone because no one liked him and he didn’t sit alone because he himself didn’t like anyone, he simply sat alone because he did. 
         “I don’t know,” he finally concluded.
         Of course, Elsie already knew this.  Elsie knew that if no one had liked Micah, then he would have been made fun of like the other kids unlucky enough to find themselves on the outs and she knew that if he didn’t like people then he would’ve skipped being around them all together and would’ve just sat in the library or out in the back of the building.
         “Why don’t you sit with me?” Elsie suggested.
         Finding no logical reason to turn Elsie down (not that he’d want to) Micah followed Elsie back to a round table and took a place next to her on the surrounding bench.  Micah looked around at the faces he was now presented with.  Elsie sat with quite an array of people.  There was one boy who sat, with his nose buried in a book, who glanced up briefly at Micah, but was quickly reabsorbed.  Two girls were turned towards each other, talking at a speed which Micah was sure was record breaking.  A second boy slouched forward over the table staring at him and Elsie, the headphones he was blasting music from, slightly askew on his head.
         “Hey bro, welcome to our table!” he said “My name’s Chris, what’s yours?”
         “Micah.”
         “Cool.”
         “Elsie brought me over” Micah said for lack of anything else to say.  Micah often found silence to be enjoyable, but not when it was the awkward kind, so he was desperate to not let any conversation fall for too long.
         “She usually does” laughed Chris.
         “I brought Chris over a few years ago” interjected Elsie.
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         A year or so passed by and everyday Micah sat with Elsie, Chris, and the rest of Elsie’s motley crew.  Every now and then a new person would show up with Elsie and they all would just scoot over and make room. They talked and soon found each other to be the best friends any of them ever had.
         Then one day Elsie didn’t show up.
         “Where’s Elsie?” Micah wondered aloud.
         “I’m not sure.  It’s not like her to just not show and she’s hardly ever sick” said Chris “I hope nothing is wrong.”
         Unfortunately something was wrong.  You see, Elsie wasn’t at school and even though she hardly ever was, Elsie was sick.  Elsie was lying in a hospital bed waiting and wishing for someone, anyone, to come see her, because at that moment Elsie was alone.  Until Micah showed up.  Just like Elsie had sought out Micah only a short while ago, Micah sought out Elsie.
         “Elsie, what’s wrong?” asked Micah, softly.
         “Nothing” Elsie replied.  This time it was Micah’s turn to be perceptive and read what Elsie was hiding, and Micah knew.  Micah knew she was lying.  The chart hanging off her bed confirmed it.
         “How much time do you have?” Micah whispered as his eyes began to well up.
         “Long enough” said Elsie just as light and airy as always.
         “How can you be so calm?  Aren’t you scared?  I know I am…”
         “Why?”
         “What do you mean why?”
         “Why are you scared?”
         “Because…I don’t want to be alone.”          
         “But you won’t be alone not if you want don’t want to be.  Just like I’ll never leave you, not unless you let me.”
         “But Elsie, you’re, well, you’re dying.”
         “No I’m not.  No one dies if you don’t want them to.”
         Micah left the hospital that day perhaps more confused than when he came in.  Micah was sad and two weeks later he got even sadder.  Elsie died and Micah was lost, and for a while Micah felt alone.  He thought about how he’d never felt alone before Elsie, how he’d never felt alone with Elsie, but how he felt alone after Elsie.  He thought about Elsie’s words, but couldn’t figure them out.  Elsie said he wouldn’t be alone, but he looked around and thought that he was.  Elsie also said that she wouldn’t die, but he thought that she had.
         Until one day when he saw a girl sitting alone.  Micah was struck by how much the girl tried very hard to be unremarkable, and that’s when it hit Micah.  He marched right up to the girl and stuck his hand out.
         “Hi, my name’s Micah” he said smiling his best Elsie smile.  Micah finally got it.  Micah finally understood. He wasn’t alone and Elsie was gone.  He had thought wrong. He didn’t want to be alone and so he wasn’t.  His lonesomeness was nonexistent, it always had been.  He never had a reason for sitting alone, because there never really was one.  ‘No one really has a reason’ he thought to himself.
         Micah looked the girl in the eye.
         “Why do you sit alone?”