Born Different (4 page)

And now after
two long and laborious years on top of the five he had already
spent at secondary school, it was all over. Only, like a caged
animal, Gabe was now familiar with his surroundings. And as the day
of freedom approached, Gabe was now thinking and beginning to
suspect and worry that perhaps he didn’t quite know how he would
survive out in the wild.

Not that Gabe
thought of the school environment as his world, that zoo with the
other animals in it. But at least here he knew his place. He had
fallen into a role and character. It was not the best one, the
leading role, the jock or the girl magnet, it certainly was not a
role he would ever have chosen for himself but it was not the worst
one either. Gabe was ‘the kid with the hump’!

There were
certain kids far worse off than Gabe in the school meat market, he
knew that. Hell he was best friends with some of them!
Had
been best friends with them Gabe reminded himself but now his life,
future and sanity would be better if he walked away from them
too.

From the pile
of clothes on the floor, Gabe pulled out the first jumper that came
to hand and put it on over his shirts, t-shirt, vest and the
swathes of bandages. He made a series of last checks to make sure
that everything was concealed completely and then he did the
finishing adjustments for pain; rearranging himself, trying to get
as comfortable as possible. Making sure that not too much of the
mottled red rash skin was appearing over the neck line. No visible
tell-tale blood spots.

When Gabe was
finally content that he was completely, utterly and totally hidden,
only then did he feel safe enough to open up the curtains and tilt
the blinds to let in some light and reveal the new day.

Gabe peered
through the gap in one of the slats so that he could see out to the
grey skies and beyond. Everything was still wet with the tail end
of last night’s storm that was still pissing it down; puddles of
water covered every surface and there was not an inch of sun in
sight. And Gabe thought that only he could gleam a little delight
out of this depressing scene of summer.

Everyone else
was always hoping for sun and warmth so that they could throw their
clothes off and walk around half naked. One day, Gabe thought, he
would like a tan and be able to throw his clothes off with the same
carefree abandon like everyone else did. Without a care in the
world, walking around enjoying the good weather. It was all anyone
ever seemed to go on about. Sunny days, beach holidays, suntans,
nice sunny weather. It drove Gabe mad but at the same time he would
have given anything to do the simple things that most other people
took for granted.

Gabe was so
often forced to go against the grain of what everyone else thought
was acceptable or enjoyable to do and not because he always wanted
to, even though that is what everyone else had to presume and
think. Gabe believed he couldn’t be more damned if he tried.

Out in the
pouring rain it was a day like any other. Grid lock traffic, people
busy getting from A to B, living out their routines, their lives.
Day after day. The red brick houses topped with grey slated roofs
lined up, one after another. The cars, sat bumper to bumper,
belching out further plumes of grey. In all of its chaos, it looked
static. Day in day out, it looked as if nothing ever really
changed.

Looking out of
the window, Gabe always had the urge to jump, to fly. If only he
could rip off his bandages and open his bedroom window and just fly
straight out, he thought. Give today a miss and just fly up high
above all this instead and see it all for what it really was,
insignificant in the grand scheme of things or all so vitally
important? He wasn’t sure.

But Gabe
couldn’t fly, even if he wanted to. His wings were too weak. Gabe
was certain that if he just pulled up the blinds, opened the
window, stood on the ledge and jumped now, he would only go
straight down and hit the ground hard. Possibly breaking both his
legs and destroying his mum’s flowers in the process and no doubt
causing her to worry that he had finally lost the plot.

But that didn’t
stop him wanting! Gabe really,
really,
just wanted to soar
up into the sky and be free. He wanted to glide around for a bit in
the space where there were no other humans, no shops, no cars, no
school, no exams. No money so therefore no lack of it. No stress
and hassle and pressure. Just the sky and limitless possibilities.
The sky, Gabe thought as he looked at the black clouds rolling
away, was the greatest canvas of them all. Ever changing, never the
same sky twice. The gateway that led on to the rest of the
universe, to far further than Gabe could possibly imagine and even
when he tried to imagine how far infinity might be, it blew his
mind away.

And somewhere
inside him, even if he didn’t hear it, there was a knowing, deeper
whisper that left him yearning. It was telling him what he knew but
daren’t acknowledge; that he could be there, should be there even.
But he wasn’t!

Gabe didn’t
much like his current reality. He seemed to be living in the wrong
one. One where he didn’t fit. He was square peg in a school of
round holes. He knew it was all a miracle; The Big Bang, The Solar
System, The World, Evolution, life and being born, being conscious.
From the centre of the earth to the very edge of the universe and
everything in between, Gabe thought was a miracle. He wanted to
know the answers to it all and try and figure some of it out. But
it blew his mind. Like the chances of being born as you...’the
individual you’ were impossible, like winning the lottery over a
hundred times over, and the jackpot, not just a tenner. Gabe knew
that every day and every little thing and every single person was a
mind blowing miracle but reality didn’t seem to reflect much of
that! No one else seemed to realise or care.

For whatever
reason, Gabe saw that people just wanted to get on with their day,
their plans, their deadlines, their routines, their lives. And it
all looked pretty boring and mundane. Perhaps, if everyone knew how
special and unique and lucky they were, what a complete miracle
everything was, then they would celebrate every day. Celebrate
life, celebrate their similarities and their differences, be kind
and friendly and dance down the street. Sing a merry tune. Just be
a bit more bloody jolly about the whole situation.

Gabe tried to
like people, he tried to like everybody or at least try and see
some good. He had read somewhere that the thing that you most
disliked about someone was nearly always the thing that you
despised most about yourself. Gabe still hadn’t figured that one
out yet. It could very well be one of those things that needed to
go into the psychobabble bin. Or it applied to the masses but not
to him, as he often realised. But Gabe found it too hard to see
other men and women as his spiritual brothers and sisters when they
were invariably so ignorant and boring or just plain unfathomable.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like them, more that he just did not get
them.

To Gabe, there
was a bit of a vacuum between him and them. That’s what it was.
Like a vast gulf or a giant valley. It may not have been visible
but they all felt it.

Gabe looked out
at all the faces in the street and he didn’t know why everyone was
so miserable. Perhaps it was for the best, the way things had
worked out what with all the evil and suffering that was about too.
Perhaps if everyone just celebrated and partied all the time,
nothing would ever get done. If there was no order and routine, no
people in power or government telling people what to do, no laws or
rules, would most people just descend into savage like behaviours?
Were the majority of people not able to self-govern themselves,
with their own high standard human right morals and human kind
principles? Would they ever be?

But the way
things were now, with everyone always so busy and so stressed out
and suffering from this, that and the other, there had to be a
better way. Gabe had read that in the sixties they took LSD to open
their minds but now, they took Prozac to block out their minds! And
Gabe didn’t believe much of what he read, Gabe reminded himself
that everything was invariably lies and that he had to do his own
research before he believed in anything, but Gabe could believe
that.

As Gabe watched
everyone getting wet in the rain, making themselves ill to go and
clock in somewhere for the day, he wondered why it wasn’t
preferential to have a more simpler life, even if that meant only
having what you needed. Would that be such a bad thing? If everyone
had just what they needed? And if they weren’t so busy, could the
masses be trusted with more free time on their hands? Could people
be trusted to educate themselves without having to be locked in a
class room and forced to learn? Was all this misery optional? Did
everyone need to work like slaves just to buy the latest ‘must
have’ bit of stuff? To work their way up some invisible ladder so
that other respected them for that rather than for their true
qualities. Or was all this a part of the next crucial step in
evolution? And did it really matter? And how the hell, thought
Gabe, was he going to go about sorting out the whole world’s
problems when he struggled to cope with his own?

As Gabe looked
out between the slats of the blinds of his bedroom window, out to
the far reaching grey of the real world going about its business,
it cast a dark shadow over his heart and left him with a passionate
desire to live out his life another way.

And then there
she
was. Grace. Like a welcoming ray of golden light and
clarity breaking through the grey clouds of dark reality. Grace was
secretly the reason behind Gabe’s own morning routine. He knew he
would see her if he was ready in time. Grace was walking to school
at the same time, like clockwork, like she always did, always had
done, every school day for years. And now it was the end of the
last year and she would probably never walk past his house ever
again. Her routine was going to change and she would, in the very
near future, be walking another way.

Gabe had first
met Grace a long time ago. They had been friends in infant school
and then for a while in the juniors; then Grace’s family had moved
house to a better area. Grace had gone to another school and Gabe’s
life had filled up with the friends he still had now. Gabe might
even have totally forgotten about ever having had Grace in his life
but Grace had turned up again in the same secondary school. Where
now everything was very different. Their eyes and minds had been
opened up to all the other stuff in those few years apart.

The name of the
game at secondary school was to fit in and be liked and Grace had
naturally been absorbed into the crowd of The Beautiful. Gabe had
no other option other than to fall into the crowd of The Damned.
There were lots of other gangs and cliques and other students but
as far as Gabe was concerned, there was Grace and her friends at
the top, high and bright, and him and his friends at the other end
of the spectrum in the school hierarchy; at the bottom of the heap,
as low as you could go without falling off the edge completely and
into oblivion. And everyone else, Gabe and his friends just bulked
together as being in the middle.

Gabe remembered
the first day Grace had turned back up in his life again. A lot was
happening that year; Dave’s father had been arrested, Frank’s mum
had died of cancer and Johnny, looking back knowing what he knew
now, Gabe knew that he would have certainly already had committed
his first crime and perhaps even took his first drug. Everything
had already started falling apart.

But when Gabe
had set eyes on Grace again, not only was she stunningly beautiful
but Gabe had been transported back to the memories of those days of
being a little kid again and he had realised that he had felt more
like himself then, a himself that he had liked being.

Grace seemed to
have remained pure, while Gabe and his friends and their lives were
rapidly going downhill to a darker place. They were skidding along
rock bottom and they were probably irretrievably damaged already.
But not Grace. Grace had appeared like an angel, clean and
beautiful and somehow more knowing. She did not appear to have any
of the hang-ups or esteem and confidence issues that Gabe had. Gabe
thought that Grace must have been born knowing exactly how you went
about being a beautiful human being. She was blessed. She was just
perfect.

But Gabe never
spoke to Grace. He avoided interacting with her in any which way,
shape or form. But there was just something about her that had
captured his attention and it wouldn’t let go. And, he had to admit
it to himself, he had become a little obsessed with her.

But it was all
a joke really as Gabe knew that he was the last man on earth that
Grace would ever look at. She would never like someone like him but
that did nothing to stop him feeling like he needed her.

He had stood
there in the half dark, most mornings, for the last few years;
looking for her, waiting for her and watching her.

Wanting
her.

Loving her.

Was it Love?
Gabe thought so! The enormity of the feelings that he had for her
couldn’t be anything else other than love. Or was it infatuation?
Could you really love someone that you didn't really know anymore?
Someone that you didn’t really ever speak to. Someone that was so
different to you. Was it all really a bit on the stalker side and
should he give it up and get himself a life? Gabe was torn by his
heart’s absolute desire for Grace and his intellect knowing that it
would be absolutely impossible.