Clarence

    I'd never been very kind to Clarence Jenkins. In my defence--albeit a weak one--he'd been an easy target. A skinny, weird-looking kid with glasses, he had a high-pitched voice and the attention span of a flea. And his name--to me, he'd been asking for it.

    Suffice it to say, what few friends Clarence had had before the October of kindergarten, my merciless teasing drove them off.

    I tormented him every day for ten years. "Stop it!" he'd always yelp. "Stop making fun of me!"

    Of course, I'd never let up.

    Then, one day in tenth grade, he simply vanished. No one heard from him again. The guilt pangs diminished shortly after. Thirty years later, I hardly thought of him at all.



    Though a relatively healthy person, I'd found out I had gallstones in my mid forties. I was to undergo an operation.

    I lay on the operating table in the thin hospital gown, shivering. My wife had long since been ushered out.

    The nurse began to administer a general anesthetic. As I grew drowsier, the doctor came in and snapped on latex gloves.

  "Robert Matthews, eh?" he grinned, making me uneasy.

    Before everything faded, I spotted his name tag.

    Clarence Jenkins.