The Story of Alexander, Part 1.

This story couldn’t have been predicted.

Progression has created such a large gap between the generations; almost everything is unfathomable, to a grandfather charged with raising his only daughter’s child. There had been circumstances, behind the birth – a single young woman who’d borne a child out of wedlock, who had remained tight-lipped about the father, and who’d had no other choice after the falling-out with her parents but to make her own way.

The boy, Alexander, was bright. He had a sharp mind, and if he hadn’t, the amount of floundering he would have done would have undoubtedly been considerable; his grandparents, having experienced the hardships of raising a child ‘too permissively’, put him in school a year early. His development was on-par with the older children in his grade…but only just.

Every spark of talent, as reported by his teachers, was pursued and pressed upon. He could be anything, when he grew up. He had an ear for music; piano lessons began. He had a sharp eye and great coordination; they had him try basketball. He had a broad imagination; they enrolled him in an art program.

Alexander was busy, being pressed in several directions…but it seemed that everything they tried, he lost passion for. There were days when he would have to be kept inside with a bowl at his bedside, his grandmother soothingly rubbing his back while he vomited, and he could not explain why the idea of being among so many people with so many expectations made his stomach churn.

Both of his grandparents tried to soothe him. Remind him, more so, that these were talents he would carry throughout his entire life. ‘Think of the future,’ they would tell him. He would be ever so glad to have developed these fine talents, when he was older.

School wasn’t proving to be much of an intellectual challenge for him, and he was placed in smaller, specialized classes. There wasn’t much of a chance for socialization, which only fuelled their ideas that his extracurricular activities were of the utmost important. Time was needed for school, homework, additional lessons.

So often, they asked about his friends. Alexander could only shrug, a little bit helplessly, and explain that he didn’t care for the people he met there.

Friends were important, they told him. Particularly his classmates, clever little boys and girls who would no doubt be going places; they were future connections, they told him, and those were nearly as important as his talents on their own.

Alexander would nod, promise to make an effort, and go about his days in the exact same way as always.

Keeping his head down.

Putting the least amount of effort forward, as little as he could get away with.

Feeling quiet, growing disdain for others – opinionated, loud, messy people who touched and spoke too much, that made him flinch and retreat into himself, that made him want to put up a barrier between himself and them.

Without knowing why, he kept these things secret, and buried the fear that his future would be marred by the fact that he didn’t function the same way as everyone else seemed to.