Felipe and the man in blue

Felipe has no friends at school. Also, he barely knows how to sing. All he does is hum as we practice for the upcoming regional musical competitions besides the school hall. Sometimes I want to hit him hard or smack him – in a good way. If he can’t join us in singing, he shouldn’t peep and hum as we sing. Felipe doesn’t have a tongue. All that is left is a hollow mouth with a couple of canines and incisors. My friend Thomas says he lost it the night his parents died.

Today Felipe sat with me during lunch. He carries his food in a brown bag. He looks dismal when eating. I can’t fathom how he’s able to chew. Even though we have been eating for ten minutes Felipe hasn’t taken any water.

“It’s recommended to drink water thirty minutes before or after eating.” He scrawls the words on a piece of paper and tosses it to me.

No wonder he has no friends. No one likes a nerd. Or mostly someone who only communicates through writing. We all hate reading.

‘Who told you that?” I say as I down my glass of water.

“Science” He notes.

The bell goes for our afternoon Chemistry class. I know Felipe likes science. This should be able to cheer him up. Studying is his best friend, not me. He spends his entire weekend locked up in his room at the orphanage. Flipping page after page. He dislikes finding answers on YouTube. It’s the way I get my assignments done. He prefers doing things old school.

“You can never find scientifically proven research on YouTube” He once wrote to me.

“Only in journals and textbooks.”

I remember hitting him for writing that to me. I’m not the only one who preys on him. He is a common target at school. Felipe can’t fight back. All he does is wail in some alien language and stomp. Before throwing fists, words are necessary to scare your opponent. It’s a disadvantage to Felipe.

But I can never hurt Felipe. I only hit him because I love him so much. I hit him because I expect more from him. Last Saturday I went with Felipe to the orphanage. The Nuns gave us blackberries and warm bread. They love Felipe so much. They say he will be a saint, San Felipe. The kids at the orphanage look healthy and happy. I wonder what happens with their life when they come of age. Probably, they turn out to be nuns and priests, I conjecture.

Felipe sleeps with five other boys at the orphanage. Two triple-decker beds on either side of the room. The walls are lined with pictures of saints and a crucifix right above the entrance. At least Felipe has someone who takes a watch of him when he enters and leaves his room.

I plump myself into a basket chair next to the entrance as I take in the earthy flavor of the room studying the cracks in the walls. The pictures on the wall stare in the depth of my soul. So many secrets there. I can’t let them in. I turn my gaze to Felipe’s bed. Neat and nice. A light blue pillow with red stripes, purple bed sheets, and a brown little doll with a scorched neck.

“Felipe is found of that little bear.” Says a voice from the shadows. It’s the nun who ushered us when we arrived.

“He had it the night his uncle brought him to the orphanage. He’s a good boy even though he can’t speak. He writes so much about you.”

“Yeah,” I say.

I never knew Felipe had an uncle. I wonder why his uncle had to let such a ‘good boy’ live in the orphanage. Maybe his uncle is a dummy. Felipe has never spoken or wrote to say of his uncle. Old memories must be painful for him. He’s probably trying to forget all that and fill the void in him with happy memories. I’m uncertain if he can find good ones from school.

This is how the good nun narrates Felipe’s story.

“There were tears in heaven on that fateful night. A seven-year-old boy sitting in front of a burning house. No one knows how he came to be by the roadside. Felipe’s uncle found him holding that doll. His mouth and forehead bathed in blood. The fires that quenched their house glistered in his dry eyes. He couldn’t say a word for his tongue lay there on the ground. Of course, his parent’s bodies were recovered, charred, and unrecognizable. They died curdling each other in the hope that fear wouldn’t get in their midst. One could still see and feel the fear that engulfed them when they died. Days later authorities concluded that the couple had died before the fire outbreak. At his uncle’s place, Felipe drew pictures every day, some scary and some astonishing.”

I feel lost as the nun rushes to collect some of Felipe’s drawings or sketches. I have seen him draw. He’s not good at it. Drawing monsters and lonely souls in a cold place is his thing. The thought of his mystical story sends a cold rush down my body. Felipe, fire, no tongue, no parents…

“You care to look at these?” The nun gently places a heap of old papers on my lap.

I can’t recognize the words scribbled on the drawings. I can’t find much to say. I stare at the scary drawings and think of Felipe.

“Huh, each of the drawings has the same words scribbled on it. That will be your purgatory, silence.” The nun says.

“It took us time to grasp the meaning.” She continues with her eyes stuck to the drawings.

“That night everyone thought Felipe had started the fire that saw the death of parents. Some hypothesized that he cut his own tongue to repay for the unspeakable act. For whom will he have to answer to without a tongue. But such a young boy at such an age was incapable of that. He wrote this the day his uncle brought him here.”

The man in blue said I had to pay for my parent’s wrongdoings. Never to speak of it but relive it every day. Here I am making right whatever it is my parents did. I’m happy to comply.