Time Heals

Charlie

        I sit in the back of the cold plane, gazing out the window as the colors slowly change from black, to navy, to violet, to pink and back to a baby blue. It has been approximately three hours, which means there are two hours left of boredom and beauty. Two hours until I will see my new home, apartment, and the people that lye within that. I drag out my drawing notebook, and start sketching different pictures, or people, places, what my new apartment will look like when I decorate it, a few sceneries of mountains, lakes, rivers, hills, houses until I'm interrupted from my 10th drawing.. by a young boy? he stands about 3 feet tall, and moves to sit in the open seat next to me. "hello" he says " i like your hair." he picks up a lock of my lavender colored hair, and looks at it, as if he's in a daze. "well, thank you- what's your name?" I look down at him and smile. He looks up at me with brilliant, deep blue eyes, and says "Charlie, what's yours?".  I now notice what I didn't notice before since he had been looking at my hair and at his feet, a great purple bruise on his cheekbone and eye. "Indiana- my names Indiana.. h-how did you get that??" I ask, pointing to the bruise. "Well, mommy came home one night and she was kinda sad.. then she was mad- she didn't mean it!!!" he raised his voice and stood on his tippy toes, with a sad puppy face on. "okay, okay, do you want to sit with me? will your mommy be okay with that?" "yeah!" he looked back at his sleeping mother.

       I gave Charlie an earbud as we listened to beautiful combinations of piano and cello, and even though he was still so young, he didn't mind the mature music. I opened my drawing pad and placed half on each of our laps, he drew his imaginary dog, angelo, and I sketched a woman underwater. We spoke of our old homes, new homes, and  families. I learned that Charlie only has his mother because his big brother was taken from him. They were close, he said that his brother was nice and fed him every morning and night, and read peter pan to him every night, and walked him to school. And then one day he didn't pick him up from school. I told him about my younger brother, and how I lost him too,  in effort to comfort him. It turned out that Charlie is moving to Toronto also, and on the same street. it was that morning that I swore to myself I would watch over him and be there for him, as I'm sure his brother would be thankful.

        There was only a matter of minutes until touchdown, since I could see the ground getting closer and closer until we landed roughly. Charlie's smile grew with great excitement when we landed, we held hands because this was his first flight; and surprisingly, his mother still slept through it, as the passengers began standing up, I told Charlie that he'd better get back to his mom, so she wouldn't become anxious when she awakens. I gave my new friend one last squeeze from my palm to his, and sent him quickly over to wake her.
I stood up and grabbed the one bag I brought along with me, since I was sneaking to abscond the house as quickly as I could. I draped my gray knit sweater over my shoulders and clenched into my suitcase as I slowly depart from the airplane. Though the small misty windows I could see the small snowflakes, floating as if the outside world were frozen in time. I stopped and stared outside the small, thick window, at the still snowflakes, and wished that I could just freeze in time, with no worries, not a single care in the world.
Like a snowflake,
in the middle of December.