#3 (By JJH)

These concerns gnawed at the back of the lad’s mind throughout the day, accompanied by a constant uncomfortable tensing of the lower abdomen. He sat reclined in the back row of his classroom, one eye squinted, the other staring dismissively through his pewter rimmed monocle. His eyes glimmered only with the passing of his German teacher, Fraulein Eberhardt. As he glanced slowly up from her navy blue pumps to her grey woolen skirt, his eyes widened and the left corner of his mouth took a sinister turn upward. Then, as she inevitable would, the buxom German glanced downward and shook her head as she gazed at the clammy hand tucked beneath the waistband of the boy’s green sweatpants.

None of the boy’s classmates noticed this interaction, as they didn’t notice him at all. Despite this obvious truth, he felt all eyes in the room searing his nearly translucent skin. Most painful were the eyes of the Lord Baby Jesus bearing down from the manger scene depicted behind him. If only he could convince the Christ child that his innocence was in fact, intact, he thought. The pain in his gut worsened.

The bell rang, the boy tucked his monocle safely in his shirt pocket, pulled his athletic socks over the elastic cuffs of his sweatpants (to guard against ticks, of course), hefted his monogrammed backpack upon his shoulders, and began his journey home. As he waded through the swamps that guarded his home, the reflective thread of the initials LKQ shimmered on the boy’s pack as he dreamt of his commode and his journal. Little did he know his brothers his awaited him and had no intention of allowing the boy the peace and relief of his afternoon bowel movement.