The Run Away Boy

By: Kaiden G. Stone


Tap, tap, tap, tap - tap – tap. That was all I could hear that night, way back in 1983 as the
rain outside splashed on
on the ledge of the window sill.
I was twelve years old, and I had never felt so alone at the time, even though I shared a dormitory room with three
other boys, all of similar age to me.

The room had no lamps turned on, it was so dark that I could barely see my hand in front of my face.
I had been sent to bed early that night
for throwing my food at one of the other kids; he had been bullying me
me all day.
So he was asking for it. I thought so at the time anyway. I had cried so much, after I had been slapped hard across the back of my bare legs. That my face was red and my eyes soar from salty tears, and wiping my tears away with my pajama sleeve.

The slaps were so hard that I had three bright red hand marks from the punishment for over an hour.
My abuser had also twisted my arm, which stung like a Chinese burn given by a school yard bully.

This didn’t stop me wanting to escape, which I had planned to do a few days prier to my incident with the food.
Unfortunately for me however, things never always went that simple in the
in the orphanage, as some one, or something always got in the way.

This time it was the local farmer’s dog that some times slept outside my dorm bedroom on the landing. I fell
over him as I tried to sneak down the hall in the dark, which then woke the night staff up.
Needless to say, I couldn’t sit down properly on a hard chair for days due to the good hiding I received, from
a member of staff that would put any well known dictator to shame.

I wanted to reach out to the world outside, beyond my bedroom window, beyond the green field where I knew the farmer kept his chickens, and far, far out of reach of being beaten with
belts, slippers and old bed posts.

Just to feel wanted and needed like normal kids. As I...