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A Journey To Truth

by Mike Fontanini
        Once more Summer faded to Fall. School started again. The sun was shining and there was a light breeze making the weather perfect. Justin, a fourth grader, was excited about getting to see his friends again, and the bus ride to school seemed to take forever.
        Time rushed along taking its course. Before Justin knew it, the school year was half over. He went to school each day, saw his friends, and went home at the end of the day. This continued all school year long.
        One day a few months before the end of the school year while Justin was riding the bus home from school, he saw four third grade boys taking turns playing a Gameboy Color. One of the four boys wasn't getting any turns to play the Gameboy. The other three weren't letting him play. He was a bit smaller than the other three boys and didn't appear to have much self esteem. Justin watched as the little boy looked upset for a moment, and then started to cry. Justin looked out the window, feeling sorry for the little boy, but he soon was thinking about something else.
        The end of the school year came and went. Winter faded to Spring which then faded to Summer. Before Justin knew it, time had aged him several more years and he was a seventh grader in middle school.
        On one of the first days of the school year, Justin saw three eighth graders picking on a sixth grader. The sixth grader was nervous as he was just learning his way around the building and starting to get the hang of his new schedule. The three eighth graders taunted him. They told him lies about how he would get beat up this year or how they would do this or that to him. They were making him more scared than he already was. Justin was disgusted.
        That year, just three days before Justin's birthday, his dog Kasey got hit by a truck driven by the guy who came out to his house to read the electrical meter. They had to put Kasey to sleep because otherwise he would have been crippled. After the first day of school after the death of his dog, Justin was riding home on the bus. When he got home, he found nothing but an empty yard. Kasey did not come running down the front yard to greet Justin home like he always did. This hit Justin hard. He missed how Kasey came running down the front yard to greet him home each day. He fought back the tears. The only thing that was there to greet Justin home today, was the loneliness of the void left behind by a lost friend. Justin had never had many friends, and so Kasey's death was much like the loss of a best friend for Justin.
        Time rushed along, Justin's pain faded. During eighth grade Justin saw a kid with braces. The other kids called him names like train tracks or brace face. Justin never saw that kid smile because he didn't smile much so that his braces wouldn't show, but the other kids still made fun of him anyway.
        Soon eighth grade was over. Justin was starting to notice that time seemed to move ever faster the older he got. It seemed like there just wasn't enough time in the day anymore. He remembered how ten minutes seemed an eternity to him when he was in elementary school and thought about how ten minutes seemed like ten seconds to him now.
        Soon ninth grade rolled around and Justin was now a high school student. Being a freshman, he was picked on and looked down upon by some of the seniors. He remembered in seventh grade how he'd seen the three eighth graders picking on the sixth grader. Now Justin understood much more clearly exactly how that sixth grader had felt that day.
        Ninth grade was somewhat lonely for Justin. He'd never had all that many friends. In fact, he didn't have his first friend until he was in fourth grade when he made friends with a third grader named Darren. The bus driver had given everyone assigned seats at the beginning of the year. It just so happened that Darren and Justin were assigned the same seat. For the first several days that they sat together, neither Justin nor Darren said a word. Then, one day Darren started to talk to Justin. They began to talk, and soon friendship bloomed. Justin and Darren were friends for about two years. They faded apart when Justin became a sixth grader because Darren, being a fifth grader that year, was still in elementary school and Justin was in his first year of middle school since he was a sixth grader. The following year when Justin and Darren were in the same school building again, Justin saw Darren in the halls from time to time and noticed that over the year that they had been in different school buildings, Darren had changed and was now a completely different person from the Darren Justin has been friends with. Justin, not having tons of self esteem since he didn't have many friends, didn't try to talk to Darren to see if Darren still wanted to be friends. Instead he let anxiety win, a decision that he would learn to regret.
        Many times when Justin was alone, he would think about how he'd seen other kids having fun laughing and telling jokes with their best friends. Justin had never had a best friend. In his loneliness he yearned to have a best friend. He would daydream about the fun they might have together. He just wanted a best friend, someone who was kind and compassionate, not mean. Sometimes he wondered if that was just too much to ask, that maybe he just wasn't meant to have many friends, that maybe he was meant to be lonely forever. That was a scary thought for him. It made him feel tense inside. It was the fear of being alone.
        Time marched on along its linear path with no destination but forward. Soon Justin was a sophomore. One day after school on the bus, Justin saw a kid sitting alone listening to a walkman. His name was Jake. He could tell that Jake was lonely. He knew that Jake had few friends. Justin understood how Jake felt since he himself had few friends. He saw Jake begin to break down and cry as the song he was listening to opened the flood gates in his heart. Justin decided to befriend Jake and so he started to talk to him. Justin knew he'd done the right thing when Jake's tears faded into a beaming smile. When Justin saw Jake's smile, it made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside, knowing that he'd made Jake so happy. They became best friends that day, and were always there for each other. Their friendship grew quickly and blossomed into an awesome power. They both knew that familiar lonely feeling that would come and go as it pleased. They could tell each other things they couldn't talk to anyone else about. They had a much deeper understanding of each other than what others had of them because their loneliness was the common bond that brought them together. Some would say that they were more likely to become friends with more outgoing people than they were to become friends with each other, but opposites don't always attract.
        Another year came and went and Justin became a junior. That year there was a new kid in his class who was African American. His name was John. John didn't talk to anyone since he didn't know anyone yet. Unfortunately, the other kids didn't try to get to know him. Justin noticed that John still didn't talk to anyone several weeks after he began coming to this school. Justin befriended John. He wondered why few of the other kids had made friends with him.
        Justin's senior year came quickly. A week before Christmas vacation, his best friend Jake moved. They had an emotional goodbye that day on the bus after school. They told each other that they were going to miss each other really bad and that they'd never forget each other no matter what.
        Christmas vacation came. Justin heard lots of Christmas music, but he was not happy. The happy Christmas carols made him think of all the fun times he and Jake had shared, but his memories were just shadows of the past that made him cry harder. One evening he was home alone. Some Christmas music was playing. Justin missed his friend, and would've given anything to change things. Outside there was a blizzard. The cold wind howled through the trees. He tried to hold back the emotion, but slowly the music pried open the flood gates in his heart. The tears came. There was a gaping hole in his life and in his heart where Jake had been. With his best friend gone, Justin at first felt a seemingly endless loneliness when he thought of his friend. He could not escape this loneliness because of the way it seemed to permeate his whole world, seemed to be everywhere, seemed to put everything in a dull, gray shadow. Slowly, he got over the pain as time is the only true cure for a broken heart.
        By the end of Christmas break Justin had recovered. He wondered how Jake was doing. That day after school he got an e-mail from Jake. Jake gave Justin his new e-mail address so that Justin would be able to e-mail him back. Jake had also told Justin that he really missed him a lot. He even told Justin that he'd cried because he missed him so much, especially since he still had no friends at his new school. Justin e-mailed Jake back and told him that he really missed him a lot too and that he'd also cried. Justin and Jake were very happy again. The warmth and compassion of their friendship had lifted them up out of dark times once more, and once more it would be a safe haven for them where they could escape from the cold, cruel world and be with someone who really cared about them. They swore that they would always be best friends forever no matter what. They swore they'd never lose each other, and told each other they didn't know what they'd do without the other. They both made sure the other always knew they still cared, so that their friendship would not fade away.
        As Justin's high school years ended, his adult years began. He'd seen many tragedies. He was saddened by stories of fatal car crashes, construction accidents, plane crashes, school shootings, house fires, and other tragedies. He would be saddened even more when rain pounded at the window, and the dark gloomy weather would fit his mood. He often would spend hours just pondering why the world is the way it is and why things are the way they are. As Justin had grown older he began to understand things better. He was able to think about things much more clearly as his mental abilities developed. He began to see as he grew older, that the world was not the happy place it seemed to be when he was just a little boy. He saw pain and suffering everywhere. He noticed that most of the people around him didn't seem to notice how much tragedy there is in the world. There were so many things that he hated about the world. He hated society's unwritten law that boys can't be emotional or show emotions. He figured that there would much less violence in the world if boys could open up to someone and not be ashamed of crying. There was always someone in need. He was saddened by news stories about senseless hate crimes. Justin wondered why people do the things the do. How could someone hate another, or a group of people, enough to commit a hate crime? Could it be that somehow that person's heart had just been eclipsed by hate and anger? Justin did not have the answers to most of the questions he asked in his mind. He was being very philosophical, asking more questions than he answered. He thought of the beggar on the corner, the kid with braces, the man who'd lost his family in a plane crash, the little girl who's puppy ran out into the street and got hit by a car, the veteran who'd seen his best friend take the fall on the battle field, and he so many other tragedies. He knew that love was the only cure for hate. He'd learned about the power of compassion when he became close friends with Jake. He knew that love was more important than anything else because without it, a person withers and dies' like a flower in a drought. As he thought, Justin realized that wounds to the heart never truly heal. They simply scab over, and from the on the wounds can always be reopened again by a song, or a memory, a sound, a sight, or even a smell. He also realized that, like love, hate is very powerful as well. He knew that hate destroys, like a lightning bolt striking a tree and splitting in half right down the middle all in a fraction of a second. He'd seen examples in history class about how much damage hate can do. He remembered learning about the Holocaust and slavery in the United States. He been through many tragedies in his own life, seen so many more tragedies in other peoples' lives, and learned about tragedies of the past in school. Justin realized that he had changed over the past fifteen years from a little kid, to a compassionate adult who understood the power of the heart. So he decided to dedicate his life to helping others, so he started working for Habitat For Humanity building houses, and whenever Justin had extra money, he donated it to charities.
        Time rushed along. One day while in a gas station, Justin saw a familiar face. Suddenly a light went on in his mind as he realized it was his best friend Jake. He went up to him and they started catching up on missed times. Then, without warning, a man came in yelling and pointing a gun. The man went to the clerk. Jake and Justin were in an isle facing the clerk and they could see everything. They were only a few feet from the burglar. Quickly Justin made a decision that he knew could change his life forever. While the burglar yelled for the clerk to hand over all the money in the cash register, Justin leaped at him from behind and seized the gun. The police then rushed in as the clerk had bush a secret button under the counter that triggered a silent alarm. Justin handed the gun to the police. He was regarded as a hero for his courageous act as the burglar probably would have taken hostages as his demands had been increasing.
        Justin wondered about the burglar. Did he simply not have a heart? No, everyone is basically good, so everyone must have a heart, he thought. Who was the real person inside the body of the burglar? Was he living on the street or had he just taken a wrong turn on the road of life? Justin couldn't answer the questions that came to him.
        As Justin got older still, he got involved in the government. He saw his best friend Jake again because Jake was now working in the government too. One day, Justin got some tragic news. His father had died. Justin was deeply saddened, but at the funeral as he said his last goodbyes to his dad, he told his dad that he would continue to help others until the day he died.
        Slowly Justin and Jake move to higher ranks in the government. One day, one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States died of a heart attack. Justin was appointed to replace him. Justin was glad to be a justice of the Supreme Court but he didn't like the circumstances that had gotten him there. He wrote to the family of the justice who had died and told them that he was deeply saddened by their tragedy and that he would do his job in remembrance of the fallen justice, and never forget how he got there or do wrong.
        Two months later, Jake was appointed as a justice of the Supreme court as well. He was appointed to replace a justice who died of a stroke.
        Justin and Jake were now part of the supreme authority on right and wrong. They would both serve their country this way for the rest of their lives. They would maintain the freedom and fairness of the country they lived in and believed in.
        In younger days, Justin and Jake were underdogs, but they had overcome it and risen to the top. They continued to help others for the rest of their lives as a team.
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