On a rainy Friday afternoon students rushed to their lockers as the ninth period bell rang. With the talk of the big football game this weekend and the party that followed everybody remained in their own isolated world as they rushed to their buses. Everyone wanted to be freed from the rules and stress of school as they jogged to their bus hoping not to dampen their outfits.
In the mix of all of this, one freshman boy was lost. I passed him numerous times as he sprinted outside of our school seeking for his bus or a familiar faces but in the mix of all this chaos he seemed to go unnoticed. He received an unfriendly glance or two as he frantically knocked into some, but no one reached out to offer some aid. I fal into this category as well, maybe even worse for myself for I knew him. He lived around the block from me and I was aware of his mental condition but I assumed he could have found our bus despite the absence of our regular bus driver.
I was proven wrong because as our bus shut it doors and the last call, I looked out and found this boy on a gloomy day drenched, frighten, and still lost. His sister noticed his absence and instantly looked out the window and saw this tragic sight. She screamed at the bus driver, who had began to pull out of our designated bus area, and pleaded him to stop for her brother. Sitting in the front, I saw him ponder on the right thing to do. He continued to drive, not wanting to anger my schools administrators but as his sister continued to scream he decided on the right thing. This anxious boy finally arrived on his bus but still confused, as he was unable to comprehend that this was bus was going to take him home. His sister, in the back of the bus, had to explain this concept that seemed to be a normal, easy concept for the rest of us. I heard some chuckles from those occupying the seats behind me, and I instantly became heartbroken.
I was unable to comprehend how people could be so cold-hearted, so self-absorbed. They only stopped their worlds of parties and dramas to mock someone who seems just a little different from the rest of us. Has that what society has come to? Our priorities have completely altered through out time and the only thing people find significant is the little thing that can alter their own lives. That’s it, the only thing people care about. And I must admit I have fallen victim to this previously but the idea that a bus driver prefers to save his job before relieving a baffled boy seems absurd to me. I could never phantom doing that despite my own selfish desires and this rude awakening has created a sort of apathy towards society with a mixture of desire. But not self desire, a desire to help to change and I owe it all to my neighbor just trying to survive in a world that seems so cruel to him.