breakdown

I encountered an Angel today. He arrives to turn in paperwork for his summer employment application in the late afternoon. He is shorter than the typical teenager and resides in a small slender body. His black hair sweeps across his face tinged with sweat from the run from his father's truck to the building's front desk. He pulls out paper after paper to contribute to the required application packet. As I check to see if he has all the necessary documents, he looks around the lobby with curious and frightened eyes and shifts his weight from left to right back to left then right. He is missing two necessary documents so I ask him if he could ask his father for the information. He nervously seems to understand what is still missing from the packet and says he'll be right back. As he leaves through the double doors I turn to the next case and proceed to make copies of birth certificates and social security cards.

With the hum of the machine duplicating with genius precision, I turn my head to look out the window and find him running back to the building feet heavy with apprehension. I leave my half-finished copy work to greet him at the door. He hands me the first needed document and I check it off the list. One last crucial item remains. He hands me a membership card to an existence I'm unfamiliar with and have been forced to face head on. With regret I explain the situation of not being able to count this card's declaration as actual proof for what is required. Desperation flashes across his face. Remembering the cap assigned earlier this week to no longer accept applications from 14 and 15 year olds, I ask how old he is to double check that we have not been wasting his time. He responds and immediately my heart plummets to the floor. Fifteen. I try my best to blunt the sharp reality that he will not be accepted into the program because he has missed the opportunity by only a few days. It is torture enough to deliver the now disappointing news, but I clinch my jaw and lock it in place to prevent myself from breaking down when I see his shoulders slump down, his eyes slide from shock to sadness, and he covers his head with his hand. I quickly try to pick up the pieces of his heart, hope, pride, and future and refer him to another similar program being offered by another community center but I'm too late. The breath of his hot air balloon has exhaled from his opportunity seeking lungs and he stands before me defeated. My attempt to salvage his dream for summer employment through our program fails. And with parting words he passes through the double doors one last time. I stand in the lobby glancing over his incomplete application and look up to find him slowly walking back to the parking lot with this head facing the pavement.

Hours later after busily manning the front office until closing and attempting to decompress at a Starbucks with book in hand, I arrive at home and walk through the front door. My parents begin asking about my day and naming off options for dinner as I enter the kitchen and I can't do anything but cry. I'm cradled in my dad's arms with tears pouring from my eyes as fast replays of my interaction with Angel continuously play in my head. Angel with a broken wing.