Thank you for the Music
A Grateful Heart, Day 4
“Who cares if one more light goes out
In a sky of a million stars
It flickers, flickers
Who cares when someone’s time
runs out
…
Well, I do.”
One of Chester Bennington’s most poignant lyrics, and it brings a lump to my throat every time I hear it, for several reasons.
It was 4pm, on an evening in February, several years ago. I was in the classroom, in College, conducting Vivas for a small batch of students prior to the Public Board Exams.
The very last candidate for the Viva, was a boy, and while I was getting ready to quiz him on grammar, syntax, and figures of speech, I noticed that there was a bleakness in his eyes that was not in keeping with what I see in the usual teenager.
I began with the usual questions. He was clueless about many things in the textbook, but he was quick on the uptake and improvised when he didn’t know the answers. But it was clear, as the minutes passed, that his heart was not in it. It was not the usual boredom and impatience with the questions, but a kind of world-weariness, which was genuine, that rang alarm bells in my head.
I changed tack. I asked him to talk about himself and what he expected in life. There was a silence while he thoughtfully studied my face.
“No one loves me,” he said, and it was a bald statement of a fact that he had got so used to, that there was no expression on his face while he said it.
“I do”, I said, instantly, and without a break.
He looked at me again and then sat down opposite me.
I asked him about his family: and he gave me an account of a family that was very affluent. His father had ‘found someone else.’ His mother was an airline pilot and doted on the elder son who was good in academics and sports: she apparently spotted some kind of vicarious salvation through him. And this boy, the younger son, did not seem as promising and besides, he still loved his father, which made him part of the enemy camp.
The atmosphere at home veered wildly between cacophonous partying, and deathly silence, screaming matches, and sulks.
The boy gazed into the middle distance and talked. And talked. And talked. I listened quietly. He spoke till 6 pm. He spoke till he was exhausted.
And then I talked. I am not going into what I said: it would take reams to get it all down, so to speak. He listened quietly, nodding from time to time. I watched the bleakness leave his eyes after some time. Outside the classroom, the sun had set and darkness had set in. Inside, a spark, a small spark had begun to light up in the child’s eyes. I spoke to him till that spark became brighter: and then I ceased. And sat back.
He let out a great breath, that sounded like a gasp. He looked down at the floor. And then he looked up at me, and said, “Thank you. I was going to go home today, and kill myself.”
He smiled at me, and he said, with genuine warmth, “But I think I shall live for some more time. Thank you.”
He left the classroom. I waited some more time in that empty classroom, to stop shaking with reaction. And then I went home.
That child has now become the country manager in a German company and lives in Europe. We keep in touch. We don’t refer to that momentous day when God helped me save a life.
But when I think of Chester Bennington’s lyric, even when I am writing this, there is still a painful lump in my throat, for those who fall through the net and cannot be saved.
©️ 2021 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
Continuing with the Monthly Prompt for November, A Grateful Heart, initiated by Ravyne Hawke for her light-filled publication, Promptly Written. Today is Day 4.
