Handcuffs

There was a boy who I never really got to work with, but still managed to have a bond with. We share a love of reading fantasy, and so he recommended to me a certain series. I checked out the first one, and started reading it. When I told him, he asked me what it was about, and his face lit up. He did not believe that I would actually read it just because he suggested it.

I finished reading it a few days ago; it was hardly the best book I have ever read, but it was enjoyable and a simple diversion from the more intense novels I usually partake of. I returned to work, eager to share with him that I had finished it (he had never read the ending of the first book). When I got there, the staff told me he had been escorted out just a few days before.

Returning to Juvy.

In handcuffs.

This boy, he had a temper, no doubt. He could fight, and fight well. But he could also be sweet and funny and clever. I don't know why he was arrested, or why he was going back (the joys of court, is my guess), but I do know that he should not be in a place where there is no one who will read the same book as him. In taking him away in handcuffs, the government did this child a grave disservice. He was in a psych ward for a reason, and he was improving.

Now, he'll no longer have a reason to read, because there will be no one to talk about it with him.

I want to make a great metaphor, comparing the handcuffs to love, how we as humans can suddenly be locked away from all that we care and love because of our mistakes or, sometimes, the mistakes of others. But my heart isn't in it. All I can think about is this boy, a tiny, skinny thing with a mouth the size of Texas, going away in handcuffs.

And I didn't even get to tell him I finished that danged book.