Posted 1:13 PM by Alfred

Jonas sat in the grass field, a bag of sunflower seeds at his side, a Dodgers hat perched on his head, and listened to the wind blow.

Cracking the seeds in his left cheeck, spitting out the shells, soaking up the sun, watching the clouds slowly drift across the sky. He'd had his eye on one that looked like a giraffe for a while, but it was starting to transition into a rabbit.

Nobody understood him. As much as he tried, there was no way to express what he was feeling. He didn't even really know what he was feeling.

A yearning. A desire. For what? Sex, drugs, rock and roll? He was too young for all but the third. And Van Halen's 1984, which he had played over and over until the tape had broken, had satisfied his desire for that. He had since moved on to Motley Crue's Shout at the Devil, but it wasn't the same. The memories of Eddie's guitar licks would hold him until he could afford to buy another copy.

10 years old going on 50. Sometimes he wished he had a screwed up family life to blame it on, but his parents were actually pretty cool.

They just didn't understand.

School was no problem, the teachers liked him, even though he was a cut-up sometimes. He had friends, laughed, hung out, had fun. But there was something missing.

Why did he feel this way? Why did it bother him for hours on end when he saw Mrs. Hawthorne walking her three legged poodle Wok-Wok? Why was he obsessed with the cracked glasses and greasy comb-over of the clerk at 7-11? The guy's face haunted him, taunted him.

Why did he dig up earthworms, let them crawl up and down his arms for hours on end, and then worry about disease as he drifted off to sleep at night?

What was wrong with him?

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