The young boy

The young boy stepped into the narrow corridor and stopped. It was about to happen again.  He paused for a second, wondering if this time would be any different, any better but resigned to his fate, he handed over the scrap of paper to the authoritative yet  matronly like woman. He saw that same look in her face that he had seen countless times before that always seemed to ask screaming silently “But this boy is so young. What did he do to deserve this?”.

He turned left. Everyone else went right. Everyone turning right was smiling but he turned left and walked a short distance to his destination. It will get better he thought. It will get better as I get older. It wont feel so…

But what did I do to deserve this? Why does everyone else get to go right and I always go left? Why do I have to bear the strange stares and hushed up silences?

He had done nothing. Not nothing wrong. Not nothing right. He was just a boy. But people rarely saw that. What they saw wasn’t just any other boy. He was different. He deserved what he was getting and he shouldn’t compain. After all the sins of the father…

As he sat he was offered some water by a kind looking face. It wasn’t the water that gave him some solace but the kind face. His heart had a much greater thirst that required quenching than his throat. He felt a bit better but only for a few seconds before the others came in.

This time it was mostly much bigger men wearing suits looking at him coldly. It was about to begin. They seated themselves around him, in front of him and behind him paying him little obvious attention but their furtive glances had already sized him up. What did he do to deserve this treatment? He was just a boy of maybe 10 or 11…

Soon it would all be over. Soon he would be asleep and then away from this place that always made him ask questions which he had no answers to. He didn’t even know what he was feeling. Just as he closed his eyes the air hostess lightly touched his shoulder and asked “Sir, how would you like your steak cooked? If you’d like I can make the bed for you. In First Class our aircraft have completely flat be.. oh but I m sure you already know this since you and your family travel so often with us. How are your parents? Please give them our best regards and we look forward to seeing them soon!”

But he was just a boy. He kept wondering what he had done to deserve this.