One Year

He has changed so much in just one year, she thought. Look at him. Look at how he twitters his hands when he thinks no one is looking. Look at how he cuts his eye when he hears a noise. Look at the marks on his arms, those red lacerations, those little purple craters where they burned him.

Before they took him, he had a laugh like a bell. Ha! it would ring. Then, Ha! and Ha! Like a bell in a steeple, just so.

But then they came and they took him. A truck full of soldiers pulled up into the schoolyard and the children scattered and the soldiers took him and the other teachers and he alone returned. Four others gone and he alone returned. They took away a steeple of a man and brought him back a ruin. Just look at him.

Look at him.