Home's Kid (For Glenn) by Dale Harcombe
This time I know I will never see him again. For a time he played the game, like a child experimenting with blocks, building towers and fortresses but never bridges. Bridges are hard. Invariably his feet would slip, before he found the acceptance parents had denied and other children refused him. Acceptance he couldn't recognise even when it came, like waves gentling in his life. Institutions, foster homes, he knew them all. Fourteen going on ninety. Knowledge gleamed in his eyes. Though he has since been swept out of reach, particles of sand cling and memories are water-cold companions.
*first published Westerly Autumn 1995
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