The Boy Fishing On The Moon

2.

It was the night of a waxing crescent. 

 The boy sat in his classroom.

The boy sat in the middle of his classroom, with his head to his desk and his hand scribbling away.

The boy's classmates all a ran in and out the door and snaked after one another in between each desk gap, occasionally flashing in front of the boy's desk so quickly the top of his paper would float up one after another.

He sat there. Drawing.

Doodling.

The boy didn't know what he was doing but keeping himself busy from breaking down to his teachers.

"Are you having problems at home?"

But what seemed like a problem in the eyes of everyone around him seemed like a life style he was taking longer than expected to adjust to. 

And as he tried to adjust to it, in his small ingrown gut he felt home wasn't home anymore. 

The boy was smart.

He'd ask what is home. 

Home is where the heart is. Where mommy and daddy live. Where you sleep and where you wake up and eat and you can leave for hours or days or months but home is in your heart. Home isn't a roof over your heads. It isn't a building. It's turning a building into a place of memories good or bad. 

It's the safe spot in tag. Because life always seemed to be just a game to us when we were young. And we needed somewhere to not be 'it' and be, what we're always missing now, safe. 

The boy felt safe at school, in the surroundings of all his classmates and adults, how he'd always anticipate, expecting them yell or hit one another. 

The boy knew better. He wasn't home. It isn't the same boy.

"Hey." 

The boy looked up to see a girl in his class. Melissa Nujjet. 

She smiled at him and stare down at his desk but the boy stayed staring at her.

She was almost the height of his desk and had black hole eyes no one could ever look into with all the time she spent pushing tears out of them. Her hair was brown like a Snickers bar and her favorite candy was skittles. She always smelt like vanilla and she was allergic to vanilla. 

The boy liked Melissa since the day she moved into the town. He liked the way he could never get a chance to know her.

"What are you drawing?" Melissa asked. Her voice mixed in with the shrieking of the other kids.

The boy looked at his paper and saw what started as a few shapes became to look like buildings and poorly drawn people. He made a face at it.

"An amusement park."  The boy replied. The girl blinked at him and put her head closer to the paper.

"What kind of amusement park is that?"

The boy shrugged. "The fun kind."

The girl stood straight and passed her small fingers over it. 

The girl snatched the paper from his desk and ran out of the classroom.

The boy jumped from his desk and ran after her, pushing his classmates out of his way and calling her name.

Melissa. Melissa! Melissa!

Maria! Maria! Get the fuck back here. 

The girl dashed in and out of the boy's sight.

Melissa give me my paper!

Maria stop running from me stop you fucking cunt!

The boy was running in his father's shoes and thought the girl grew 4 feet into a floral dress as she tried to get away from him.

The boy caught up to her.

She turned to him smiling and teachers look at him smiling along with her. He stood at the doorway, looking down at his paper in a woman's hands. 

She walked up to him happy as can be. "You are very good at drawing."

The boy looked at the girl who was shuffling through a box of colored pencils and grinning down at them. 

How could he ever think to hurt her?

The boy never wanted to compare her to his mother.

He wasn't at home. You're not at home boy. It's not the same.

Home is where the heart is. You're heart is always at home. 

The boy told his father about his teachers praising his work while they threw hooks into the lake on a waxing crescent.