A Bad Day, or Is It Not

     I got a strange feeling this morning as my son said “Mom, have a nice day at work” on his way out to school. My oldest is one of the sweetest souls in my life. He never forgets when to give his mom a kiss, a hug, or some sweet saying. Yet, this morning, as he said the usual blessing to me, some heavy weight crawled onto my chest as I turned in my bed struggling to get up for work. And it proved that there was indeed something negative waiting for me this busy Tuesday morning.

     After a few of succinct words of excuse to my colleague, I rushed out the building with tears flooding in my eyes. Crashed in bed, I let go of the well of tears, all to myself. I blamed myself being such a big fool. Questions swimming in my head as tidal waves, ebbing and flowing, answers and solutions seem to play a tricky game with me.

     Time flew by no matter how hard a person tried to cope with it. Drying off tears from my face, I opened door, put on my badge, and strode in the library. Tasks would be my savior for my current status and they were. Then the boy got my attention.

     As I shelved books at the children’s area, a boy showed up at my left side standing there staring at me. I tried to ignore his presence for he was quiet and did nothing. Then I moved to another shelf at another area. He presented himself again, this time at my right side. Ha…I was followed. “May I help you?” I asked the boy without looking at him at first with a tune of amusement. Silence answered me. Slowly, I turned, bent, and looked at the young man. “Do you need anything?” “Dorito,” said the boy. With help of my right hand gesturing an eating movement, I asked him “chips to eat?” He nodded, still no word from him. “Is your mom with you today” Nod. “Go ask her to see if you can have some cookies, ok?” He disappeared then came back with another nod. “Follow me.”

     Stopped at the information desk, I indicated him to wait there and said “No guarantee it would be Dorito, ok?” Another head nod. There were cookies and animal crackers on the table in the break room. One cookie on a napkin and some animal crackers on another, I rushed back to my desk. Since it’s prohibited to have food in the library and I couldn’t let a little boy be out by himself, I got an idea to fix the situation: a stool at the desk. So I handed the snacks to the boy and had him sit on the stool by me. First he tried the cookie and had it on the floor. “Don’t like it?” Nod. “Try the animal crackers.” Gingerly and slowly he savored the crackers. Once in a while, I turned my back to see if he was fine while I was serving patrons. “Good boy!” He was quietly nibbling his crackers with his face faced toward my back. I then turned back to my customers and smiled “what a cute boy he is.”

     Sound of commotion from the back caught my attention. I looked back to the boy. Standing there looking at me with his hands holding the napkin, he seemed not sure what to do next. So I took away his napkin and wiped away the crumbs on his lips, corners of his mouth, and his face. He just stood there shyly and quietly being served by this librarian. “Now, you are decent and handsome again.” The boy left without a word.

     This is not the first time I was followed by children. Usually they followed me silently with a curious look on their faces. As I spoke they would be shy, run away or smile at me. This is the first time I interacted with a boy almost mutely. Though the only word from him was “Dorito,” I felt we had a very good communication this afternoon.

     Did I have a bad day? Well, maybe. But I got comfort from this taciturn boy.