Rachel Kilgard Crowd
He was born to a crowded family, one that already had brothers and
sisters and sons and daughters. The boy was always just one more in the crowd, swimming in the torn knee hand-me-downs of his older brothers. He was raised in a house that never slept, a miniature version of New York City, the city of crowds. He hated it and dreamed of being away from the crowds in his own room that he didn’t have. His siblings were older, more mature, fit in with the crowds at school. He wasn’t and he didn’t, even though his family was the kind of crowd that bustled through the schools, tiring out teachers. At school he was quiet, a mere shadow of the crowd. He was never picked for kickball teams or group projects and so the teacher would step in, reminding the class to be inclusive, momentarily separating him from the crowd, forcing him to be noticed. But this was always forgotten and he would blend in once again with the crowd. As he got older, he realized the benefits of coming from a crowded home. He could blend in, be anonymous, just another indistinguishable face in the crowd. It didn’t matter whether he got good grades or bad grades, made friends or sat alone, read a book or played a video game; all of it was lost in the chaos of the crowd. Nobody seemed to care, but that was the freedom of the crowd.
49
