Line of Time

I won't let you leave like that.

The boys finished high school and were granted duel citizenship in America and their home country. They all kept in touch and had visits once or twice a week. Tino wandered the halls in the house and sometimes tried to get their attention but it never seemed to work and when it did it was seen as something just falling because of accident and nothing more. Over the years all the boys had turned into men and had families. Gunnar had a beautiful wife and had had a little boy and little girl with her. They were all so happy and Tino didn't feel like he belonged here anymore than he did when he tried to get anyone's attention before. So he just stayed in the room he had called his own so long ago, it was a guest room and no one ever slept there. But one day in the summer, all the doors in the house were open to let the air circulate and Tino sat against the wall as usual and just stared off into space, waiting but for what he didn't really know. Then he saw a child in his line of vision, the little boy, the oldest out of the two children. He was about five and a haft and was running down the hall with a toy plane and ran into the room. He ran around in circles and then stopped. He turned and looked around as if he felt someone watching him, his eyes landed on where Tino sat and he dropped his toy and ran out of the room screaming.  

Tino tilted his head to one side as he watched the little boy run away and then disappear down the stairwell to find his dad. A few minutes later Gunnar walked upstairs with his little boy in his arms. He stopped in the hallway and the child pointed towards the empty room. Gunnar then walked over into the room, showing the small boy that there wasn't anything to be scared of and picked up his plane and gave it to him. Gunnar was on one knee and his little boy trying to climb back up into his arms.

"What's wrong Todd?" Gunnar asked as he saw that he was worked up over something in the room. Gunnar couldn't find anything. It really didn't have much in it. A bed with no covers or pillow because they were kept elsewhere. A desk, dresser, a chair and small bookshelf with books he had not looked at in some time. The walls were still the same colors as they had been before and same for the carpet. Not much had changed about the room since Tino had lived there, it was just empty now. But nothing off that could scare his little boy so much caught Gunnar's eye.

"The boy." Todd answered as tears ran down his face as he looked at the spot on the wall where Tino sat against and on the floor. Gunnar's eyes fallowed his son's finger but could see nothing there.

"Is the boy your friend?" Gunnar asked thinking it was an imaginary friend.

"I don't know him!" Todd said as he looked up at his towering dad.

"Why's he in our house daddy?!" Todd asked as more tears ran down his face and he hugged his dad's shirt. Gunnar looked around the room again, coming up with nothing again. Tino stood from his spot on the floor and walked over to what once had been his bed and laid down, not wanting to hear the living anymore he covered his ears and turned his back to them and hopped that Gunnar would just leave. For the first time, Tino wanted his friend to leave and not notice his presence. He didn't want to be noticed like this, because he scared a child. He wanted to be noticed when he missed Gunnar or any of his friends from before, but it never seemed to work that way.

"Let's go play downstairs, Todd." Gunnar said as he lifted his small boy up into the air and flew him around as if he was an airplane. Todd smiled and they disappeared out into the hall and down the stairwell.

Years passed and more failed attempts at getting any of his friends' attention. Todd had grown but he never went back into the guest room again. It was another summers day and the doors were open again, Tino sat at his old desk and stared out the window. Again he waited for some sort of sign that he would find the key he needed to pass over to a happier place where he wasn't ignored and he had someone to talk to. He hadn't talked to anyone in such a long time, he wondered if his voice would still even work if he tried to talk at all. He heard the children playing and Gunnar's little girl giggling, she was about three and Todd now seven. She tattled into the room as she was being chased by her brother. She sat down on the floor with her crayons and pieces of paper. Her brother was about to come in and get her but then he saw which room she had wandered into and he went down stairs.