I came across this piece I wrote in college for an point of view assignment. I hope you enjoy it.
Reflections I have seen many people over the course of my existence, but none that I have wanted to help more than Randy. He was a young boy whom I first met when at the tender age of six. A more ambitious soul has never existed. His dreams consisted of a myriad of philanthropic endeavors. Randy wanted to be a doctor so he could heal those suffering in the world; he wanted to be a farmer so he could feed the hungry. He wanted to be a millionaire so he could help the poor. Indeed, Randy was full of hopes and desires for the future, as are all young people I would imagine, but time like the society of man changes everything it touches.
It was in late autumn when I first suspected the change. Randy, no longer a boy, now a young man of sixteen, visited me every morning. Over the past few years, I had watched the carefree youth grow up, and it seemed as the vibrant tides of youth subsided in the boy, so too did his happiness. He now stood in front of me with a somber, expressionless face similar to the one he appeared with when he was 9 and his dog had died. His golden brown hair, once containing the very rays of the sun, had long since become a sullen mat of lifeless mass. His bright blue eyes seemed to carry the weight of the worlds as he stared at me with utter disgust.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself this morning?” Randy asked in a dry, lifeless tone. Unable to give an answer, I just listened to what he had to say. “Every one hates me, you know. I don’t fit in, don’t belong, but at least I have Cindy to pull me through. Dear Cindy, heaven knows what she sees in me.”
I stared vacantly at Randy who, with a disgusted sigh and shake of his head, lumbered off to face his day. These comments were becoming more and more common with Randy, and they left me feeling helpless and confused. What would I say? What could I say? That he might listen to me and become that eager little boy again, ready to grasp life with both hands.
The weeks ebbed by with little sign of improvement. Autumn had gone and so too were the carefree days of fall. The tapestries of colors had faded as the leaves left their homes on the trees to litter the ground. The snow came at night and a marvelous sight it was, too. Nature is a splendid artist. First dazzling us with an array of reds, yellows, and oranges showing us the unmatched beauty of color, then stripping all that color, leaving a blank canvas on which to start anew and start anew nature always did. This time in blacks and whites as the snow fell. The treetops took new forms burdened with snow and ground was covered with a blanket of white, which even on days when the sky was as gray and black as the smoke from the chimneys of the houses below seemed to sparkle with its own light. Unfortunately, just as the air grew cold and uninviting, so too did Randy.
“Well Cindy left me,” He blurted out through a pained face. He tried his best to stand before me without shedding a tear, but his efforts were in vain. He collapsed in front of me in crying withered ball, helpless to the world around him and yet still I was unable to say a single word. “I hate myself. She was the only one who cared, the only one who loved me. Now there is nothing for me.”
The next couple of weeks only seem to worsen; Randy had locked himself away from society and now was confined to his own inner torment. I had never seen him this bad before and began to fear that he might do something rash. My fears were justified on Christmas morning a time in which most people are happy bustling with excitement, eager to spend time with their loved one. Randy however had forgone going with his family to visit relatives and had wondered aimlessly around until finally coming before me.
“This is it,” He said in a confident voice that made me very nervous, “don’t be afraid, don’t worry, this here is my Christmas present to myself.”
Randy’s hand floated down to his right pocket and disappeared for a moment. Mere seconds later his and reappeared clutching something small in his hand. It was difficult at first to make out what it was; but then, as if by some insight from God, I knew what it was. I had seen one before when Randy was younger. He had been very sick, and the doctor gave him a similar-looking container full of pills that were meant to help him feel better. I knew that whatever was in that bottle was certainly not intended to make him feel better at all.
“Quiet now,” Randy continued softly. He opened the lid of the bottle and spilled its contents out on the counter in front of him. I have never seen so many pills in all my life. There were reds and blues, purples and pinks, some were ovals and some were circles. There were tablets and capsules; indeed, a colorful array of death lay before me. “Now I give myself what no one else can, freedom from my hurt, my pain, from my life”
It happened so quick, Randy started shoveling them down by the handfuls. In a fevered fit of rage, I watched helplessly as he swallowed pill after pill continuously until his body could take no more. I watched as his mother came home with tender, loving calls to a voice that was unable to answer back. I watched as she entered the room screaming at the sight, crying hideous wails of agony that I shall forever carry with me and still I was unable to make a single move. Days later, I had a new visitor, Randy’s mother.
“Why?” she asked in a mumbled voice shadowed by a sea of tears. “You should have been there. You should have done something, said something. You saw it all happening and you failed to stop it!”
Her words pierced my very being. How I wish I could have done something. I wish I could have said I loved him many months ago. I wish I could have told him he was a good person that he had so much to give. I wish I could have screamed from the top of the highest mountain that he was special, unique, loved. I wish I could have shown him what he could not have seen through his veil of depression. But who am I to say anything, who would even listen to me, for I am just a mirror on the wall and I have no voice, no voice at all.
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