Every night, a boy shouts in our neighbourhood.
He must be nine or ten years old.
I have only seen him twice, always on difficult days.
I know he lives with a mental disorder. Beyond that, I know almost nothing about him.
The rest is just noise.
People close their windows.
Some complain.
Others pretend they don’t hear him.
I don’t.
Perhaps because I have spent more than a decade living with a person with depression, I recognise something in his voice.
Not the disorder.
The loneliness.
I’m sorry, dear readers.
Today is not a day for laughter.
Today, I would rather ask you to stay with me for a moment.
Why him?
Why me?
Why does the brain sometimes become the most difficult place to live?
I don’t expect you to understand that boy.
Honestly, I don’t think you can.
Neither can I.
But perhaps we can do something simpler.
We can stop judging him.
Sometimes silence is kinder than explanation.
Our neighbourhood treats him like a problem that should remain indoors.
His parents rarely let him outside.
Perhaps they are protecting him.
Perhaps they are protecting the rest of us.
I don’t know.
What I do know is that every night his voice escapes before he does.
When he shouts, I don’t hear anger.
I hear an announcement.
“Hey, world.”
“I am here too.”
“I belong here too.”
Sometimes I wonder who his voice is really calling.
The neighbours?
The government?
Politicians?
Or all of us?
Perhaps he is asking a very ordinary question.
“If this world belongs to everyone…”
“…where is my small place in it?”
Source: Medium
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