Robert's Glare

By: Kristin Oliva


Lips could go stretched out eternally if that is what it takes to say ‘thank you’ from the heart. Smiles untainted with deceit. Eyes stared through unfiltered sight. Tiny pure souls peeking out the window with a glare painful to the eyes of a filthy man. I witnessed a dazzling light from a child that stared and smiled. With no perfect words coming out of his mouth, I was unprepared to riddle out what he was meaning to say. I was simply looking and being lazy.

One gloomy and drizzling day, I meant to catch up with a friend. A kind of catching up that could have more likely sat us on a place that was meant for the purpose but ended up spending it with school children that almost worshipped a piece of burger and a chicken meal. Wearing a keen eye, I sat on an asymmetrical wooden bench, which showed signs that it once was a perfectly carpentered seat deformed by day-to-day learning stints. Watching from the back of a humble room, I surveyed a group of kids and counted thirty. Almost everyone ranged from 7 to 9 years old and all have unnoticeable difference in height except one. He was the tallest of them all, even taller than I am. A 12-year-old kid whose mind was that of a 7-year-old and who couldn’t form a single familiar word out of his mouth. But he uttered them like a pro, on his own unadulterated rules, terms and expression that no hatefulness could breach.

He dragged my attention as if pulling my hair to his direction unawares. But, the surprise sprang from something else. I thought I was observant enough to have espied them like a camouflaged sniper looking out at each one before they could see me. But, when I had a fleeting glimpse of him he was already staring. Smiling. I thought to myself, had this been a battlefield, I might already have seized a bullet off guard. I reciprocated an innocent smile with a rather unready and agitated smirk. I realized that as I wrote those words--unready and agitated, I never really contemplated why. All I know is, his was an unfiltered hello through a crimeless smile and mine was reserved and held back to some degree.

Each kid was fed with a piece of burger and a chicken meal. Everyone was busy gorging on the burger then the chicken, except this same kid who gave me the “bullet.” As soon as he got hold of the food box, he walked slowly towards the corner of the room. I followed him with curious eyes and saw him hand it over to an old woman he called “Ma.” He hasn’t eaten yet, I assumed.

I was right.

At that early point of day, on a dull morning, I became more alert than lazy. The kids were shy as if devoid of words such as ‘thank you for the food.' But, overwhelming smiles flooded the room in a manner that words could never define. As adults, we were hoping to bring kindness to children whose families we thought have lesser means than us. But, at the end of the day it was he who took my hand and led me back to innocence, a world where there is no such thing as unready and agitated smile, a world where reservations and fear are non-existent, and a world where nothing matters even in the midst of poverty--not even a piece of burger and a chicken meal.

I overheard a holler, “Robert!” Then he turned his head in response to the callout. So that’s his name, Robert. A child whose soul glared in every direction, like a tree that dances with the wind manifesting life in the present moment… in the now--the now that has neither the desires of tomorrow nor lamentations over the past. A soul that reminded me of one thing: That the world is not a dangerous place. It is fear that creates danger. 

As the day drew to a close, Robert remained like a melancholy that haunts a composer’s music. And so I began to pen the words that no one else could have written.