Essence

        Perhaps if I had been born normal things would have turned out differently. Maybe dad would have a better job and wouldn’t have to work so hard. Maybe momma would have been happy. Maybe June would still be a kid.

         When I was born, the doctor told my parents I wouldn’t ever be able to function. “He’s autistic,” he murmured to my parents, “There are certain things he simply won’t be able to do.”

         My parents were persistent however. And even though they knew I could never be just like all the other kids, I turned out far better than the pessimistic doctor predicted for me.

         I go to a regular public high school, in my junior year. My teachers tell me I could be really smart if I only tried. I do try, but some things don’t come very easily to me. Numbers make my head hurt, because I associate words with everything. But how can I explain to my math teacher, Mr. Blake, in class, that four equals whisper and that five is a roar?

         It doesn’t make any sense, but everything in my life is labeled by a single word. My room is comfortable, but not just in the way that someone would describe it in a sentence. No, my room is the embodiment and essence of comfortable. When I walk in, comfortable fills my lungs and seems to ease all my worries. The noise that the oscillating fan on my desk makes is the word, repeated over and over. On the other hand, my school is challenging. But again, in that strange way that it flows through every corridor and taps on my shoulder. It is challenging. The epitome of challenging. And nothing else in the world could compete with it; it would simply have a different word, a different label to fill my lungs.

         It might seem strange that with all my labels, I have none for myself. When I try to think of one, I simply draw a blank. I go over all the things I do, but nothing seems proper.

         In the evenings, I wait for my father, lying down, ear pressed to the floor. He would come home, suit wrinkled and tie crumpled and then would plop himself down on the couch, eyelids heavy with a distinct five o’clock shadow. Tired. That was my father. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally. Beaten down by so many different things, it radiated off of his body and almost seemed to seep into the surrounding atmosphere. Tired, I would whisper to myself as I gazed at him. That was my father’s word. But nothing sprung to mind for me.

         Dad had always been tired, but it got worse after momma died. Poor momma. None of us ever knew what demons she faced. My mother was melancholy. I thought the word fit her perfectly. Sad, but with a strange prettiness about her. She had a soft, red mouth, the tips of which always seemed to be turned down. Her eyes were light gray that reminded me of lamb’s wool; something comforting, which made you feel safe when her gaze fell upon you. Her hair had been dark and wispy, like foreboding clouds. Maybe that’s why her eyes rained so much.

         We always knew she was sad, melancholy. But none of us knew the extent. Perhaps that’s the price one pays; ignorance isn’t always bliss. And my mother never helped me get closer to my word.

         My little sister is probably the one I’m closest to. Little June, only eleven years old, but boys with seven years on her still wouldn’t mess with her. June was passion; there was nothing mild about her, she felt only the extremes. Flaming red hair and gray eyes like my mother’s, but instead of soft lamb’s wool, hers were flashing steel. She fit her namesake month perfectly, with all the ferocity and heat that June implied.

         June had a fierce loyalty to those she liked and to those she didn’t, well, they faced a terrible wrath if they crossed her. Sometimes I wondered if I crept into her room at night and looked into her mouth, if I would find a Ginsu knife in place of her tongue, her words cut so deep.

         It’s this reason that makes me feel so bad. It was all a spiral, momma’s sadness leading to dad’s tiredness and finally June growing up way before she needed to. Sometimes I want to remind her that she’s only eleven, she doesn’t need to be so strong. But I don’t think I could get past the impenetrable armor she’s put around herself. June doesn’t cry anymore and her eyes are so cold you’d swear you’d get hypothermia just by looking into them. It’s a bizarre oxymoron, that someone so fiery could emanate such an icy chill. But perhaps finding your mother suspended in a closet one day after school would make anyone an adult before their time.

         If only I had been normal. If only I didn’t have words to label everyone. I don’t know if it would have really changed anything, but in my mind I see a different world. Happy. That’s the word for the world I created. A world where dad wasn’t tired, momma wasn’t melancholy, and June’s passion was good, not bad.

         But through all these negative thoughts, I received a gift. Given to me on a summer evening; what seemed to be an inconsequential situation was the one that made all the difference. June and I were in the backyard, lying directly on the grass and gazing up at the constellations, millions of light years away. The serenity of the night made me drowsy, and the only thing I could feel was June’s hair lightly tickling my arm.

         I was broken out of my reverie by June’s low voice; that of a little girl’s, yet so distant she could have been speaking from the stars. “Nick…what do you think of them? The stars, I mean.”

         I propped myself on my elbow and looked into my sister’s freckled face, surprised to see concern in those cold eyes. It had been a long time since I’d seen anything in them.

         “They’re pretty and bright. Ethereal. That’s their word. Yes, I think it fits quite nicely.”

         June nodded and idly fiddled with a few stalks of grass on the backyard lawn. A beetle crawled across her finger and she whispered again, “What if they’re people, just like us? And they look down on us all the time, scurrying around like little bugs. What if that’s all we are, Nick? Little bugs scurrying around, not even realizing how insignificant our lives are?” And with that statement, I watched a shining tear streak down her cheek like a shooting star and disappear into the earth and grass.

         I was slightly alarmed at her musings. Eleven-year old girls weren’t supposed to have such naturalistic thoughts. But I didn’t express my concern, and instead I thoughtfully stroked my chin and responded, “If we are bugs, then I guess we shall have to be the best bugs we can be. We’ll help out all the other little bugs and we’ll gather honey and we’ll make our little bug world worthwhile to live in.”

         I was only trying to appease her, and I was both startled and amused when I heard a soft, childish giggle erupt from the small form next to me. For the first time in five months, the corners of her mouth turned up and I could see a crack in her armor as she smiled.

         “Would I be a ladybug, Nick?” she murmured dreamily.

         “The best ladybug in the world,” I whispered. “The very best.” And with that, she rested her head against the ground and observed the heavens with a much more relaxed expression.

         It was that moment that gave me courage for my family. Maybe momma was gone, and maybe dad was still tired, but I had created fractures in June’s exterior. Maybe they wouldn’t last; maybe they would be mended or maybe new armor altogether would be put up. But that one moment of innocence flitting across her face filled me with a radiant happiness that nothing could bring down. The moment that gave me a word to represent the embodiment of everything that I was, am, and ever will be.  I was hope, my true and honest essence; and even though the moment with June might never be repeated, it would suffice. And I knew things would get better.