It is a small room and can be as dark at times as any room can get, even darker perhaps. This darkness can be disturbing, it can be frightening, and it can be oddly comforting too. For three weeks straight, in times when it was dark, he'd sit in a corner on the floor of this room and gently rocks.
Yeah, he was upset, to say the least, he was a scared sixteen year old, hurt on an emotional level with which he could not understand and in the moments when he was not sobbing, he did feel comforted, moments of comfort indeed away from the fear and sense of being lost which had come to take up most of the rest of his time.
There had only been a few people, people who are living that is, in his life just one of which he had a closeness with. Now she was gone. There had been loneliness before but never to this extent. Doctors, social workers, psychologists, none of them truly understood. They may believe they do though how could they?
Staff at this facility, as it would seem to Colin, were less interested in actually aiding Colin, it was more as if positions of employment were being filled and the bare minimum of aid was actually given so when this may not be the case at all, not completely anyhow.
On the last night of the three weeks straight within which he sat rocking and weeping in a dark corner of his small space within the facility it would be of no surprise that whom would come to offer condolences and generally just be there for him was a young lady, a lady possibly a year or two older than himself, a lady who herself was a permanent resident of the place.
'There now fella,' she would say in a calm voice while also attempting to aid him to his feet. 'Why don't we get you into bed ...' and such would be accomplished, and left be for the time being.
It felt like a dream, a kind of surreal moment, something Colin would be both aware and unaware of at the same time. When he woke in the morning in his bed, well what would be his bed while he would stay in this place, he thought back upon that moment from the night before. Did it actually happen?
Had an angel come to him? Or was she a real person?
When he ate breakfast in the common room that morning, he noticed a young lady standing and watching him from about thirty or so feet away. Was it her who had come to him the night before? He can't quite be sure. Before he could go and make some inquiries, someone called out a name and she reacted to it and moved away. That name ... Emma ... was it Emma?
It was Colin's case worker who took Colin away from the institution he spent a year and a half living within, well maybe 'took' is the wrong word, ... 'brought' would fit better. The place itself, and those who ran it, attempted to make the institution feel as much of a home as they possibly could though as far as Colin was concerned, it had never been home, not his home, he had no home, he has no home ... not any more.
He could, however, rely on the place to be there for him if it ever came down to it, but Colin was not up for considering anything like that, he wanted and needed to make a new start, move forwards, not backwards.
On the day of his eighteenth birthday, the time had come for him to face the big bad world and all that comes with it. Of course, for Colin, there would be so much more to that big bad world for him that there would be for any other average person, not that Colin is in any way average. Any other average person, huh, Colin at this point in his life had yet to completely discover that he was no other average person.
He knew not everyone would hear and see what he could. He did think there would be others out there, and plenty of them at that. And sure, wasn't a lot of time in the institution spent in a manner that the world he lived in is not based in reality ... oh but it is.
Ted, Colin's case worker, is a person who is not completely heartless, he is however a person of authority, and he does have a job to do. In fact, and to be honest, Ted has quite a bit of heart though at that and again he does have a job to do. He has been a friend to Colin and is ready to remain a friend to Colin though looking after Colin's wellbeing is a number one priority.
