Pictured Feelings

“Okay, Class,” Mr. Morton announced. “Today we are going to be talking about time capsules. We’ll learn what they are, what they’re used for, and then on Friday we’re gonna make our own.”

The classroom air filled with questions, whispering, and general enthusiasm from the excited fifth graders. It seemed like everybody–even the kids who often hated school–was already on board for this project and were itching to get started on their own time capsule. Everybody, except for Tyler Bronson.

Tyler sat in the back of the class with his hood up and his head down on his desk, completely ignoring the world around him. Sniffling came from his direction, but the sound was masked by the loudness of his classmates. He ignored his classmates and the teacher, favoring his own company at that moment as he regretted going into school.

‘It’s all my fault…’ Tyler thought. ‘It’s all my fault…’

Mr. Morton quickly noticed Tyler across the room as he was the only one still in his seat and not hounding Morton to just start the time capsule already. He watched as Tyler’s body began to slightly heave and shake.

“Hey, Tracy,” Morton began nervously. “How about you read this book on time capsules to the class for me, and I’ll listen from the back of the room.”

Tracy excitedly nodded and practically ripped the book out of Morton’s hand, who was already walking away from the rest of the class, keeping his eyes pointed towards Tyler. Tracy sat in Morton’s signature story-time chair and began reading through the book, not thinking about showing the rest of the awaiting class the pictures. Morton tuned out Tracy’s reading as he walked around the desks and sat down next to Tyler.

“I was wondering if you were ready to come back,” Morton said quietly. “It’s only been a few days.”

Tyler didn’t respond.

“It’s okay if you want to go home,” Morton continued. “Do you want me to have your mom pick you up?”

Tyler reluctantly nodded his head.

“Okay, I’ll call her. Do you want to wait in here with me until she gets here?”

Tyler nodded again.

“Okay,” Morton said quietly as he stood up.

He looked out to the rest of the class, which seemed to be having fun listening to the book, as well as Tracy’s comedic commentary. Morton quickly realized that he’s going to have to reexplain everything after he’s done with Tyler. Morton picked up his class phone and informed the office that Tyler would like to go home. Everybody in the office was supportive of Tyler’s wish and told Morton they’d be right on it. Morton hung up the phone and walked back to Tyler who hadn’t moved at all.

“Your mom will be here soon,” Morton said gently as he sat down. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”

Tyler shook his head.

“Okay, do you wanna talk about how you feel?”

Tyler took a deep breath and turned his head slightly to Morton. Mr. Morton could barely see Tyler’s face behind his hood but could see tear stains on the one cheek that was visible.

“It makes me feel sad and…” Tyler trailed off, looking up to Mr. Morton’s awaiting eyes. “And angry.”

“Why do you feel angry?” Morton asked calmly.

“Because… he’s gone and it’s my fault…”

Morton was shocked. He reached over and set his hand on the back of Tyler’s chair.

“It’s not your fault…” Mr. Morton reassured. “It was an accident.”

“He wouldn’t have been in the accident if I didn’t ask him to go to the store for me,” Tyler replied, tears starting to well up in his eyes.

Morton slowly and carefully lifted Tyler’s hood and looked into the eyes of this broken boy, with care and support in his own.

“You couldn’t have known what was going to happen,” Mr. Morton said quietly. “Nobody could have.”

“I still feel like I could’ve stopped it if I didn’t ask him to go…” Tyler said meekly.

“Well… I guess we won’t know,” Morton sighed. “But there is one thing that I do know.”

Tyler looked into Mr. Morton’s eyes. There was a scary mixture of sadness, fear, and anger, all swirling around in the boy’s ocean of brown and white. Mr. Morton could hardly handle seeing one of his students like this.

“It’s not your fault…” Mr. Morton finally said. “I can promise you that it’s not your fault.”

“Then why did he die?” Tyler asked, an ocean of tears threatening to burst out.

“Just… Because…” Morton said softly.

“Just because?” Tyler asked in a mute voice.

Mr. Morton nodded. 

“It’s just something that happens…” Morton sighed.

Tyler held back his tears and lunged forward, pulling himself against his teacher in a hug. Mr. Morton hugged Tyler back after a moment of shock. He noticed that Tracy had stopped reading and the rest of the class were staring at the two. He motioned and mouthed for them to keep going, and so, being the good student that she is, Tracy continued reading, this time with a noticeable seriousness to her voice and a lack of her previous commentary. Mr. Morton could feel Tyler heaving in his arms, barely muffling his crying into the teacher’s shoulder. 

“I miss him so much…” Tyler whispered, which was barely audible for Mr. Morton.

“I know you do…” Morton whispered back. “But at least you still have your memories of him.”

“Yeah…” Tyler whispered. “I guess I do.”

After a few minutes, Tyler pulled away and sat back down in his seat. Both of them watched as the class continued learning about time capsules, this time in an actual educational way due to the sudden mood change.

“Time capsules are important because they allow the future to better understand the now,” Tracy read. “They can teach people in the future what life was like in the past, they can hide away important things until they become even more important, or they can simply let you relive memories and feelings.”

Mr. Morton’s eyes went wide as he suddenly got an idea. He looked over at Tyler, who, while still very upset and seems like he should go home, at least had his head up and his hood out of his face.

“Let’s try something that might help,” Mr. Morton said quietly.

He stood up and walked to the back table, where he grabbed three pieces of paper and a pack of colored pencils; he knew Tyler preferred them instead of markers or crayons. He set the paper and the pencils in front of the boy and sat down next to him.

“Do you think you could draw some pictures for me?” Morton asked quietly.

Tyler looked up to his teacher and nodded with a look of confusion.

“Okay…” Mr. Morton said quietly. “If you are comfortable doing so, I would like you to draw a picture of you and him before he died.”

Tyler stared at Morton with a sense of worry in his eyes.

“It can simply be you two standing together,” Morton continued. “It can be your happiest memory together, or it can be you two doing something random together. It can be whatever you want. Or you don’t have to do it at all if you don’t want to.”

Tyler looked into his teacher’s eyes with confusion and fear before looking down at the paper and pencils with only the former emotion. Slowly, he lifted his arm and grasped one of the colored pencils, then began on his drawing.

Mr. Morton watched as Tyler drew while also making sure to study his face and the expressions he made. During the beginning of his drawing, Tyler seemed to be rather confused by the task, perhaps by how it was supposed to help. As he continued drawing, Tyler grew less confused, but look far more sad and scared and seemed as if he was on the brink of tears again, displayed by him wiping his quickly wetting eyes every so often. By the end of his time drawing, Tyler’s fear and sadness were still present but were far less noticeable, and he instead seemed like he was doing better than before.

Tyler set down his pencil and excitedly showed Mr. Morton his drawing.

“I drew my dad and I setting up a tent in the woods,” Tyler said with a sad grin. “It was the first time he ever took me camping. I was six.”

Mr. Morton studied the drawing and, while it was still a ten-year-old’s drawing and thus was pretty crude, he could tell that Tyler put his heart into it. Both Tyler and his dad were smiling in the picture.

“That is very good, Tyler,” Mr. Morton smiled. “Are you ready for the next drawing?”

Tyler nodded as he carefully shifted his drawing out of the way for a blank piece of paper.

“So this one is gonna be…” he sighed. “A bit tougher to draw.”

Tyler looked up at him with more confusion than before.

“I want you to draw where he is now…” Mr. Morton’s voice barely let him say that sentence, and the only indicator that it came out was the sheer level of shock in Tyler’s eyes. “You don’t have to if you don’t feel comfortable drawing that, but I think it could be helpful.”

Tyler turned his attention to the piece of paper before him and stared at it with a mixture of shock, fear, and obvious sadness. Mr. Morton then watched as Tyler reached for the gray-colored pencil and began drawing. Morton studied Tyler’s face as the boy drew, noticing that he showed far more sadness when he began his drawing, but seemed to feel less sad as the drawing continued. After only a minute or so, Tyler set down the pencil and showed Mr. Morton the drawing.

Tyler didn’t explain this picture, but it was obvious what it was. On the paper, Tyler had drawn a gravestone with a patch of dirt in front of it that had a few flowers sticking out. On the stone simply said, “Dad – R.I.P.”

“Okay, do you wanna do one more?” Mr. Morton asked.

Tyler reluctantly nodded his head.

“All right,” Morton began. “For this last one, I want you to draw yourself now and how you feel about where your dad is now.”

Tyler didn’t flinch at what Mr. Morton had said and instead went straight to drawing. As Mr. Morton watched Tyler’s face this time, he still saw sadness, but it was far less prominent than it was during the last drawing. Instead, his face was seemingly blank. Not in the negative sense, but rather, he was more focused on the drawing of his emotions than he was focused on his current emotions. It didn’t take long before Tyler set down his pencil for the last time and showed Mr. Morton his drawing.

On the paper were two stickmen separated by a single line. One stickman had a sad face, and the other had a thought bubble as well as a half-smile-half-frown.

“This one,” Tyler said as he pointed to the sad stickman. “Is me normally when I think about my Dad. And this other one is me when I remember stuff I did with my Dad.”

“You smile and frown at the same time?” Mr. Morton asked genuinely.

“Kinda,” Tyler replied. “I’m still sad when I think about him, but remembering all the stuff we got to do together makes me a little happy.”

“That’s good,” Mr. Morton said earnestly with a smile. “Remember, as long as you have those memories, your Dad is still with you in a way.”

Tyler smiled rushed to give his teacher another hug. Just as the child released from the hug, his mother showed up with a worried look. The rest of the class looked up at her, then at Mr. Morton, who motioned for them to keep reading. Tyler was getting ready to leave when he remembered his drawings. He picked them up and carefully scooped them into his bag.

“You should show some of your family your drawings,” Mr. Morton said. “They might help them just as they helped you.”

“Okay,” Tyler replied nonchalantly.

“Also, if you decide you want to come back for Friday, make sure you bring something for the time capsule,” Mr. Morton said. “Something that means a lot to you, but you think you can give up for a few years.”

Tyler thought about it for a moment before smiling.

“I think I just thought of something,” he said.

Mr. Morton nodded and returned the smile.

Tyler slung his bag over his shoulders and followed his mother out of the room. Mr. Morton stood up and walked back to the front of the class where he playfully kicked Tracy out of his chair and figured out where the class was in terms of how they understand time capsules.

After a few short days, Friday finally arrived. Mr. Morton and his class were excited for a few different reasons, but they were all most excited about the time capsule. While he was doing attendance, Mr. Morton noticed that Tyler had ended up coming to class for that day. Once he and the class finished their beginning-of-class routines, he stood up from his desk.

“All right class,” Morton announced. “Let’s head outside.”

The class followed their teacher through the hall and out the side door of the building. He continued leading them to the fence along the currently empty playground and stopped at a decently sized hole with a toolbox in it that had a label on it, which said, “2020.”

“This is going to be our time capsule,” Mr. Morton explained. “We’ll each put one small thing in and in ten years when you all have graduated high school, we’ll get together again and dig it up.”

The entire class, even Tyler, was excited and cheering, prompting a smile from their teacher.

“Okay, who wants to go first?” He asked.

One by one, each student stuck something small of theirs into the box. Some kids put in their favorite toys, some put in pictures of themselves or their family, one kid even put in a package of Twinkies because he wanted to see if they would still be good after ten years, prompting laughs from the class as well as the turning of gears in some of their heads as they thought about it.

The last kid to put anything into the time capsule was Tyler, who carefully set an envelope into the box. The entire class was silent as he set his envelope in, and when he returned to his spot, he was met by empathetic smiles and genuine care from his classmates. Mr. Morton smiled as he went to shut the box before being interrupted by one of his students.

“Wait, aren’t you going to put anything in, Mr. M?” A student asked.

“I had almost forgotten,” Mr. Morton smiled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out an old pocket watch. “My old man gave me this when I was about your age. It was the last thing he gave to me before he died. It has always meant a lot to me, and so I’m sure it’ll mean a lot to future me as well.”

Mr. Morton looked up at Tyler, who was smiling down at him. He returned the smile as he placed the watch in the box and shut it. He reached over and grabbed the shovel he had left out that morning after digging the hole. The class watched in excitement as the box slowly got covered up and the hole was filled. Once Mr. Morton had finished filling in the hole and was padding down the top with the shovel, the class was cheering.

“All right, let’s head inside,” Mr. Morton announced.

While the rest of the class walked towards the door, Mr. Morton stopped Tyler and crouched to his level.

“So, what was in the envelope?” Mr. Morton asked with a comforting smile.

“Just some things that might help future me,” Tyler smiled back.

“They must be very special then,” Mr. Morton nodded, catching onto what Tyler meant.

“They are,” Tyler said, turning to look at the grave that had been dug and filled for the time capsule. “He was.”

“And he still his,” Morton said empathetically.

Tyler looked up at his teacher with a sad smile. Mr. Morton stood tall and patted his hand on Tyler’s back.

“Let’s head inside,” he said with care.