Beau Button

This is the story of Beau Button, well, Beau Fairchild, but nobody remembers his official surname. After years of being referred to as ‘Button’, why would they? It’s a simple story, no twists, no turns, no dramatic pauses, just a straight, narrow road that leads to now.

Beau wasn’t the most popular boy. He spent most lunch times in infant school, strolling the playground with his favourite dinner patrol, Mr West, then in junior school, he found friendship in a group of boys but, he never fitted in. He was like a cat in a pack of dogs. Chalk, when they were cheese. He stayed friends with them despite the ups and downs until secondary school, when he felt as if he was back in square one.

Everybody he went to primary school with quickly found friendship in new people. He didn’t. He was lost and the light he was searching for was so dim, it was as if it wasn’t there at all. He would reach out and grope the air to find the switch to turn it on, but the switch was no where to be seen.

His parents would push him to introduce himself to others. “Just say hello”, his mother, Jane, would say, “where is the harm in that?”

He’d say hello, they’d return with a sardonic look and a spit of “shut up.”

When a teacher asked a question in class and he rose his hand to speak. Mutters of “shut up” or “oh, be quiet, would you?” would hover on the breaths of students.

Was it the sound of his voice?

Was it the pitch of his voice?

Was it the tone?

The way his lips moved?

What was wrong with him speaking?

What was wrong with him?

His mother would preach that her darling, beautiful, little boy, had nothing wrong with him. That others are dying to be his friend. She didn’t know of the treatment he got in school. She didn’t hear the murmurs, the whispers, the hisses. She didn’t hear anything at all.

It was late in the evening, his mother and father were doing the weekly shop. Beau was home alone with nothing but his thoughts. He laid down on his bed, eyes closed, screwed tightly, so tight it was as if his eyes were stuck permanently in that way.

The black and white world around him faded away and was replaced by the bright and shining colours of his imagination. Where his friends would come out from the shadows that ceased to exist in this world. He would talk for hours with them, nothing about the real world though, there was no point for that! Why tarnish the happiness, the jubilancy, with something that would only tear him down, shred him into pieces and set him on fire? His mind would flare up into flames of anguish and sorrow but here, here the flames settled and extinguished into a worry-less place.

Everything was well there.

But soon his escape only captured himself once again. The bright colours faded into dull, somber shades of grey, black and white. The wonderful hills that stretched far, far away built up into strong, intimidating walls that enclosed him in a tight, never ending labyrinth. His thoughts spawned into a Minotaur that chased him through the maze of his own mind.

Shut up!

Shut up!

Shut up!

Shut up!

Shut up!

Then one day, he snapped. Like the jaw of the Minotaur closing around him, he went insane. Leaping up from his bed, he tore up his bedroom, his clothes, his possessions went flying! He pounded down the stairs and he snatched his mother’s sewing kit from the shelf in the kitchen. Plucking out a single, oak wood button and thick, black thread. He threaded the needle with his shaking hands, and pressed the button to the centre of his lips right in line with his Cupid’s bow. Then he pushed the needle through one of the holes on the button and punctured his lips. Point after point, trickle of blood after trickle. He tied a knot and put the needle away.

The pain that rippled through his face was nothing compared to the ache of his chest and weight of hatred on his back. Taking the mirror in his hands, he aligned it with his face. His lips were now sealed and the words “shut up” were never heard again.

From then on, Beau Fairchild became Beau Button, the boy whose lips were sealed by a button and his voice never heard again.