Emmanuel Parfond

“And how much simpler things would be, how much better for us all, if we had people brave enough to do what was right, instead.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“Her hair was a beach of shimmering golden sand.
Her body was a sea of broiling passion.”
― T.W. Lawless

“His discovery was that evil men arose from evil systems, and that any man had the potential to be perverted. Which was why some systems needed to come to an end.”
― Hugh Howey, Shift

“This is Harry.
As a boy, Harry was very, very shy.

Some people may have even said he was painfully shy. As if his shyness caused them pain and not the other way around.

There are many things that can cause a person to recede. To look away from other people’s eyes or to choose empty hallways over crowded ones. Some shy people try to reach out and try, and nothing seems to come back and then there just comes a point where they stop trying.

In Harry’s case he was slapped in the face and called names designed to isolate him, designed to deliver maximum damage. This because he came from a different country and didn’t know the right words to use or the right way to say them.

And so, Harry learned how to be still, to camouflage, to be the least.

Some people describe this as receding into a shell, where the stillness hardens and protects. But the eyes, even when they look down and away, are still watching, still looking for some way out or in; painfully shy.

Then in middle school, Harry found theater, where he forced himself to speak through other people’s words. And then dance, where he started to speak through the movements of his body. To be so still for so long when you’re young, means a lot of pent up energy and it was released there through work, endless work.

If someone carves into a sapling with a knife, the injury is as wide as the entire trunk. Though that mark will never fully heal, you can grow the tree around it, and as you grow, the scar gets smaller in proportion.

If you, right now, are in a shell, you should know that you’re are not alone and there are many, many people like you and that there is nothing wrong with you. It might even be necessary right now. It might keep you safe for a time. But once the danger is gone, or after it’s exhausted it’s use, you’ll find a way out.

You may need help, you may need to work really hard, you may need to find some ways to laugh at yourself, or find a passion, or a friend, but you will find it.

And, when you do, it will be so good to see you.

This is Harry.

As a boy, Harry was very, very shy.”
― Ze Frank