bones and things

No one seemed to appreciate the curvature of the whale bones as he did. So, his class left him behind, all alone in the museum, to look at the spiny vertebrae hung from the ceiling as they seemed to drift in the drafty room as they would have years ago when the animal was still alive in the water.

Everyone thought that he was weird, including his own parents, when he came home from school one day with a crow skull, asking, “Mommy, what kind of animal is this?” The following week, it was a squirrel, then an opossum, and eventually, his bones got too big for him to take home without hearing screams.

He was never really friends with anyone, but his newfound interest in bones pushed away not only prospective friends at school but also any parents who would take pity on the boy and push their children to befriend him.

Many asked his parents if he had joined a cult. Many asked if he was worshiping the devil, but his parents just smiled and said, “Well, if he were in trou ble, we’d know,” (which is so not true). “Just let the boy have some fun.”

His parents didn’t say the same thing when his sister brought home a boy. What’s the big dif ference between a dead bag of bones and an alive bag of bones? And why does it mat ter that her door needs to be kept open when he’s over? Can’t someone take stock of their collection in privacy? What if they wanted to study anatomy together?

It’s safe to say that many, in cluding the boy himself, thought that he was a little different from everyone else. However, that’s not a proper reason to leave a classmate all alone in a museum. Well, the boy knew where to go from the aquatic exhibit; he just didn’t want to. So when the tour guide got tired of waiting for the boy to finish his quiet contemplations, they just continued leading the group elsewhere. The boy was perfectly content taking his time in the aquatic room. The next room over was insects, and he had no desire to rush his art. As he did every he tried to picture their skeleton. No skin, muscle, nerves, blood, or anything that distinguished alive from unalive. He wanted to see past all that and look at the curvature of the bone, the way it bent with stress and fractured on impact. He wanted to see his ty of it all. He would’ve stayed there until closing time if he could’ve, and despite thinking he should’ve, he was happy with how the sequence of events turned out.

He finally roused himself from

The boy pulled out his phone, checking the time. If he picked up the pace, then he could get home with time to study his new set of bones.

He checked the time again; he could even make himself some bergamot tea from the tree outside if he was lucky. The boy increased his stride length ever so slightly, picking up his pace so he could get home before half-

On his way home, the boy passed many of his usual haunts: the abandoned 7-Eleven, the Whole Foods outdoor dining area, the bowling alley where he would go to win first place against himself with the gutter boards up. He tried to keep his eyes on the sidewalk in front of him so as to not distract himself and delay his journey longer—he had dilly-dallied at the museum for

He saw some pretty wildflowers growing by the edge of the sidewalk and bent down to pick them up. His sister and mother would like them. He bet that his sister will press the flowers in an old book and make him a necklace out of it for his birthday, might put the flowers in a vase and complain when they start to wilt. His father would probably come home from work one day and look at his son’s new necklace and the flowers sitting in a vase on the dining table and laugh because it all seems very quaint to him. He’d then thank his wife for the flowers and make his children smile. Who knows, maybe the boy friend would appreciate the wildflowers as well.

The boy supposed that he had more than just bones and things waiting at home for him.