epicenters of power

It’s strange how the epicenters of power can be concentrated in just a few places, and how those places can be the most unsuspecting of them all.

The three friends were just sitting in silence. Above, clouds hung low and heavy. It would rain soon. The road to the village was a few hundred yards away. They sat cross legged. One had his eyes closed. The other two sat silent. The one with the closed eyes began to shiver. First it was his hand. It was as if he were deliberately doing it. Then he opened his eyes. They were blank. His hand was as if a tremor were going through it, followed by his wrist, then his forearm, all the way to his shoulder. His eyes were filled with a deep sorrow. Slowly, the arm ceased to shiver, then the forearm, then the wrist. The hand continued. He brought it to his face, and looked at it. The other two were watching him intently.

A car began trudging up the narrow road. The engine was loud. “Hey retards.” One of the elder kids from the village nearby called out from the driver's seat. They passed him no attention. “What is this retard doing? Is he finally losing his mind?” A splash. The two that were still winced as a can of beer was thrown on the third, a splash of whatever remained dampening his clothes, and spraying them, and with peals of laughter, the truck trudged on.

He didn’t notice or register the cab of beer but from outside it looked like he had. The eyes that had been filled with sorrow were now filled with a natural conclusion to it: tears. They started out as light and airy tears. Slowly, they became thick and heavy.  Trudging down his face like so many ants. That’s all they could see from the outside. Inside, he felt all alone in the vastness of space. A heaviness in his stomach and emptiness, as if both could exist, and work together to make him feel twice as bad. A sorrow, a loneliness. He wondered what would happen if he were to actually have a seizure. Was he not having one now? It had started out as harmful enough. He had been playing. But then it had courses through his body like lightning, and now he was not so sure what was going on with it. He had a feeling that he would not be able to count on his friends soon enough. And he was terrified. Already, he was feeling that loss. Already, he was feeling lonely.

In a truck trudging along a narrow road, filled with three teenagers in varying degrees of drunkenness, the one in the back seat keeping company to the empty beer cans was looking at his hand. He was looking in awe and fascination as they other two slurred their words and laughed and talked up front. With a mighty groan, the rain began. His hand, it was shaking.