He was a different kind of person. Different from those preppy kids, those nerds, those jocks.  Different from them all because, well, he cared. Cared for what didn’t even penetrate the childish minds of most.

And I knew him, though only through the letters that made those words and those words that made his sentences filled with spirit and joy from the magical box we call the computer.

Still, I knew him.

He told me about his life, his family, his friends, the world he lived in. His world, almost like a movie, like those T.V. shows, where it’s all about the cliques and the drama, where prejudice is the norm and popularity is key.  A world where everything is about the somebodies and never about the nobodies. His world, the one where he didn’t play the part of a somebody, but just an extra on the show.

Yet, he stars in another show. Another that’s yet to premiere: one in which he’ll be saving lives, fighting for the innocent, beautifying our world. He didn’t grow up only to let the words “Fries with that?” hang on his lips all day. He wasn’t going to be like his brothers, his mother, his father. He was going to take his broken wings, the ones he inherited, and learn to fly.

He will be a part of a generation of underdogs, underdogs that will break through their pens because he knows, as they they all know, how bad it can get. When money doesn’t come from the bank but food does, when candles are used for light and warmth, when books come in shades of yellow.

But I believe. They’ll write songs that light up their paths into a different world, into that different show. I hope he gets out. I hope he beats the system.