Faces Around Me

Faces – the first thing he sees. It’s cold outside so he starts to scream, his little lungs pumping. Flick, flick, flick – the faces change. One, to another to another. He can’t hold them in his memory for long for he is new to this world. This big, bright, loud world, so very different from his warm, red, quiet world he’d lived in before being born.
He knows more faces now. He can’t yet put names to them, but there are mainly three. The Food-Giver, the Comfort-Giver, and the Curious One, who stares and stares.
Mummy, Daddy and Bennie smile for him now and he smiles back, looking up at their happy faces. Daddy laughs, so he laughs. Bennie stares, so he stares back, his eyes wide and dark. His mummy doesn’t always smile though. Sometimes Mummy’s eyes leak, so he makes his eyes leak too. Bennie and Daddy don’t like to see his or Mummy’s eyes leak, so they make quiet noises and his eyes go dry.
He moves by himself now, seeing new faces all the time. He likes to talk to them, because he knows when he talks, people smile. He likes it when people smile.
There are too many faces. He wants to talk to everyone at his new school, but they all seem to be in a hurry. At last he finds someone to talk to. His name is Harry. They are soon best friends.
The other boys don’t seem to like Harry much. When Harry comes over they find something else to do. He wishes they could all be friends, but Harry’s just not cool enough. He tells Harry this, just like he tells Harry everything, and Harry says he doesn’t mind. He is glad Harry doesn’t mind, but there seems to be something not quite right about Harry’s happy face. He realises Harry wants to be cool too, Harry is jealous.
It doesn’t seem that long ago he was starting Primary School. Now he’s starting High School. Everything is complicated. Family expectations, teachers, schoolwork, girls, groups, sport, friends. So many people, so many faces, so many expressions to read. He needs to find out; “Does my teacher hate me? Are my parents proud of me? Do they think I’m good enough for them?”
He often thinks about the past, trying to get away from his messy life. It was so much easier when there was only happy and sad. He deeply wishes that there were only those two emotions in this world, without the difficulties that love seems to cause. That way, he wouldn’t have to spend so much of his time, trying to read faces.

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