Another Boy Crippled: An ABC Story

        "Apples or Oranges?" asks the boy as his mother pushes him out the hospital using his wheelchair.

              "But I prefer kiwi over those choices," replies the mother.

            "Can't you just answer the question right?" asks the boy, upset that his mother didn't answer how he'd wanted.

            "Don't you talk to me like that, ever!" says the mother, putting her foot down at this unruly behavior. "Everyone knows who the adult is here, so I suggest that you behave," she continues with a slightly raised voice.

           

            Fertility can possibly take the blame here, because if women were unable to become pregnant, there wouldn't be any ungrateful children in wheelchairs.

           

            "Getting in the car is hard!" complains the boy while in the hospital parking lot.

            "Hard for who? It's hard for me, and only me." she says, still in stressed out mommy mode. "Just sit down, okay?" she asks calmly after taking a deep breath, finally composing herself.

            Kids are, and always will be, a handful. Leaving them in the parking lot and driving off isn't an option, unfortunately. Must've been what the boy's mother had been thinking, prior to the exaggerated inhale/exhale to keep calm.

            "Never say never,"  the mother says as the boy keeps complaining how he's never gonna walk again.

            "Okay," he sighs, sounding defeated.

            "Poor thing," she thinks to herself as she puts her child to bed.

            Quietly, the mother walks out after she's sure he's sleeping. Reality has crept up on this child; perhaps for the first time in his young life. Such a sad situation to say the least. Togetherness is crucial in times like these. Unreliability, especially as a parent, is not an option.

            "Very interesting," the mother says as the boy shows her his latest class drawing.

            "When is dad coming home?" he asks, unaware of his father picking up and leaving the city.

           

            Xenophobia might have been one of the reasons for his father's abandonment, being born and raised in small town America.

         "You ask too many questions, you know that?" she asks rhetorically, knowing her son's attention span isn't the best, as she realizes he's daydreaming.

            Zoning out probably lets the boy imagine being able to walk again, to deal with a broken family, something that has become more common than people give it credit for.