As a Kid

By Emilio King

Bruno yawned and stretched himself out. He and the other students had only just finished with the day’s work and had come together in the campus lounge. Someone, Patrick maybe, was herding the group into a circle of chairs. Bruno was happy to join the herd in a sigh of relief.

The person Bruno thought was named Patrick hopped up on a table. “It was a great hustle today, everybody!” He turned around the circle, doing his best to address everyone.

Bruno leaned his head back. The speech sort of faded to the back. As did the following conversation. People chatted away, shouting and laughing across the circle. There was so much excitement he hardly noticed when it slowed down.

Bruno perked up when someone tapped his shoulder. Katelyn, a friend he’d made, was pointing him towards the circle. “It’s an ice breaker,” she clarified.

“Uh…”

A couple students quietly yipped in support. Patrick(?) waved them off and kneeled down on the table to meet Bruno eye-to-eye. He smiled and actually clarified, “We just wanna introduce ourselves. We got our names earlier, but not much else. Y’know? Like, you got any hobbies?”

“Hobbies? I mean, I’ve got them.” Bruno shifted in his seat. “Mostly crafting with scrap and what-not. Probably any junk I can find around the school, too. I mean- now that we’re here.”

“You read a lot, too, don’t you?” Katelyn asked. Bruno turned quickly, having forgotten she was there.

“Oh, yeah! Mostly history and stuff,” he looked back at the group, “Have any of you learned about the Meiji restoration? There were these, um…” 

The polite nods and smiles Bruno had seen before slowed and faded. No one stopped paying attention, but something in the air had shifted. Bruno stopped himself and smiled before saying,

“I can tell you all another time. Or- just ask me if you wanna know more.” He glanced towards Katelyn, who gave him a gentle smile before turning back to the group. Someone else had already begun talking. Bruno had lost focus. He still listened, of course. But something pulled at him.

An old computer shop. Or rather, an old building in his hometown. When he was young, it had been renovated to be a computer shop. Bruno would stare at it whenever he passed by. Its exterior was speckled with rust and chips in the paint. But the neon “open” sign was the only one like it on the whole street.

Most of the other shops in town were tailors, grocers, or any kind of service someone would need that far from a major city. They were necessities more than businesses, like a necessary form of set dressing for life. Bruno could still remember a time when that computer shop slotted itself quietly into that background without any complications.

Bruno was rocked in his seat as someone shoved his shoulder.

“What’s the dopey smile for?” Casey.

“Was I… oh.” The two spoke quietly. The group was distracted in someone else's story. “I was just thinking back on the question. About hobbies.”

Casey raised an eyebrow. Bruno knew Casey as being good at facial expressions. “Yeah?”

Bruno nodded and continued, “I guess I learned about them kinda recently. Or, at least, learned about them properly. Father used to tell me they were synonymous with distraction.”

Casey’s face scrunched up in response, but that happened a lot.

“And, y’know, ‘distractions are the enemy of inner focus’,” Bruno chuckled at his memory.

Casey’s face was still scrunched. “It sounds like that guy said a lot of things were bad for you.”

“Yeah,” Bruno nodded slowly, “I used to wonder how he learned all that.”

That old shop had only come into Bruno's view after he’d met the owner’s son. By all means, he was only “some teenager”, as the local gossips had called him. But he had been kind to Bruno. And Bruno hadn’t known he could do that.

Later in the evening, once everyone had dispersed, Bruno and a few others were left to walk back to their dorms. Katelyn more or less led the pack while she chatted with another classmate. Bruno was off to the side, balanced along the edge of the sidewalk. His arms were stretched out and keeping him balanced.

Bruno’s eyes wandered up to the night sky. With the stars above him, the cool air nipping at his skin, and the sound of friends all around, he hardly noticed when he missed his next step. A loose hunk of cement gave out from under him. Bruno made a sound of surprise as the floor slipped away from him.

Katelyn and the others turned back. A few people reached out, but Bruno’s arm was caught from behind.

Casey, their arm outstretched, hand wrapped tightly around Bruno’s wrist, was breathing heavily. They looked down at Bruno, eyes wide.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” Bruno said, smiling.