It was just another day. Typical in every fashion. I woke up, took a shower, got dressed, ate breakfast, listened to Olga practice her stupid lines for a few minutes, hopped on the bus, and rode to school. I pretended to listen to the teachers for awhile, I ate lunch, pretended to listen to the teachers again. I sat in detention for the tenth straight day, "making up work", which is what they called it. I would've called it staring blankly at the wall for a solid hour.

And then I went home, walked upstairs, took out my camera, loaded it, and walked to the park. Typical day.

The park was quiet, as usual. Not very many people felt like hanging out here anymore. It held a certain stigma now, since some kid committed suicide here a year ago. Nobody feels comfortable around the park. Perfect place for me to hang out.

I walked over to my tree. It was the way it always was. Leaves, bark, Helga and Arnold forever with a heart around it, yep, all the same. I sat down, setting my camera on my lap. I couldn't decide what to capture. I had already gotten every possible angle of my tree, and I'd pretty much gotten every creative picture possible in the park. I really needed new inspiration.

"Hey Helga!" It was Phoebe. She was riding toward me on her bike, casually and daintily. It really made me sick, the way she carried herself nowadays. Ever since she started going out with that foreign exchange student, she thought she was so cool. And she acted like it, around everybody but me. When we were alone, she was usually pretty tolerable.

"Hi Phoebe," I said, setting my camera on the grass and stretching out. "What's up?"

"Just seeing what you were up to. Olga said you'd probably be here."

I laughed. "Yeah, where else would I be?" I picked up my camera again and took a candid shot of Phoebe. She was looking off to the side, and I liked the way her hair was blowing in the wind. Really dramatic-looking. She gave me a disgusted look and laughed.

"Man, Helga, I looked horrible! My hair's all messed up, and my make-up was starting to . . ." She stopped, seeing the look I was giving her. She knew better than to start with all that stuff around me. "I was just kidding."

"I know. How's Miguel?" I asked, not really interested in how he was doing, but desiring to be polite nonetheless.

"Oh, he's fine. He's leaving tomorrow to visit his family in Spain. Then he's coming back here for the rest of the school year." She smiled, and her eyes got kind of cloudy.

"How long's he gonna be gone?" I asked.

"Just a couple weeks." She turned her bike around and looked at me over her shoulder. "Do you feel like coming over for awhile?"

I shook my head, and she nodded. "I understand. Take care, Helga!" And she rode away. But she hadn't gotten more than thirty yards when she stopped, turned around, and pedaled back. She stopped in front of me, her right leg holding herself and the bike up, and stared down at me.

"Helga, I need to ask you: Are you okay? I mean, is there anything I can do to help?"

I stared back at her for a moment before I erupted into laughter. She first looked pleased, then confused, then annoyed, then disgusted. I kept right on laughing. Finally, she gave up and rode away.

As she rode off, I took another quick snapshot. I guess she was still my friend--even when I treated her like that--but just to be safe, I had to take her picture.

Photography, for me, is a way of capturing. A way of holding those few things that are precious to me close to my heart. I started taking pictures of everything three years ago. Then, I advanced to taking pictures of only the better moments of my life. Finally, I decided that anything that I felt was important should be recorded.

Sound strange? It is, I guess. But there's a method to my madness.

The most recent picture I have of him was one from junior high, seventh grade, I think. I look at it from time to time, but it doesn't do him justice. It's not who he is, it's who he was.

I missed all those opportunities, to capture his loving face forever. I was not going to let that happen ever again. The world was too big and too frightening to let anything go . . . how do I put it . . . unphotographed.

And so she rode away, angry at me again. I could hardly blame her. For three years I've been a jerk to her. Not a total jerk, but not very friendly, either. I can hardly remember why. I think it had to do with the first time I was put in government care. Yes, the first time. There've been four or five times since then. Each case getting progressively worse.

Miriam was far too stoned to pay any attention to me, and Bob drank all the time. Finally, the powers that be had enough, and took me out of their custody. If it weren't for Olga, I would've been put up for adoption. Ha. Like anyone would want me . . .

So I guess I'm indebted to Olga, for taking me in, adopting me or whatever. And really, she's not so bad anymore. I used to hate her with a passion, but now I owed her--maybe--my very life.

I can barely remember what he looks like anymore. I'll look at his picture, remember for awhile, try to fill in the lost years in my mind, but then the second I put the picture away, I forget. It's discouraging. And scary. I try not to let it get to me, but it does, you know?

I stood up, dusted myself off, and started for home. It was a modest place, an apartment, actually, and had two bedrooms and one bathroom. It was cozy, I guess, and at least livable.

I walked up the front steps. Olga was just on her way out.

"Hi Helga. How was school?" I shot her a dirty look, and she got the idea. "Not good, huh? Hmm... Oh well, there's always tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah. Right."

She was concerned about me. Who wouldn't be? "Do you wanna come with me? I'm going to the store. We're completely out of milk."

"Yeah, sorry, I drank the last of it this morning. I was gonna tell you."

"That's alright. Do you feel like coming along?"

I thought for a moment, then shook my head. "No, thanks. I'm gonna go lay down."

"Alright, Helga. I'll be back in awhile."

I walked inside, upstairs, and crawled into bed. I wasn't tired, but I had nothing better to do. I must've laid there for an hour or more before I fell asleep.

I really want to make it up to him. I mean, I ruined his life completely. For all I know, he's lying in some street corner, dead. And it would all be my fault. It is my fault. There's no one to blame but myself.

He deserves to be happy. He deserves love. Life. Everything that I could've given him. I know I didn't deserve him, but that's not the point. It's the principle. He got a bad share of life, and it was mostly my fault.

It's been three years, and my feelings still haven't changed. I don't vocalize them anymore. I don't even write about them anymore. But they're still there. It doesn't matter, though. No one's heard from him at all. He's at least dead to me, if he's not dead to the world.

Olga was home when I woke up. She was downstairs, trying her best to cook. She'd really lost the knack for it since she started focusing all her energy on becoming an actress. It was edible, though, and for that I was thankful.

"Oh, Helga, you're up. There's a letter for you. It's on the desk."

A letter? That was funny, since I really didn't have any friends. I walked to the front room and looked at it. It was in a plain, white envelope. There was no return address. There was a Fat Elvis stamp on it, not one of the valuable ones, but a fake one, I guess. It was addressed, quite simply, to Helga Pataki. It was labeled with my old address (apparently they forwarded to me), and I didn't recognize the handwriting.

I picked it up and walked upstairs, nervous for some reason. My hands shook as I tried to open it. Finally, frustrated, I used a pen. It slit the top, and the letter dropped out neatly onto my bed.

It began:

Dear Helga,

I'm writing you on a matter of the utmost urgency. It is regarding a young boy you know, a boy named Arnold.

My heart skipped a beat. I nearly passed out. My palms poured with sweat as I continued reading.

He requests that you visit him immediately, at the address provided below. Again, I state that the matter is of the utmost urgency. Please, come as soon as you possibly can.

It wasn't signed, and all that was left on the page was the address, which I recognized to be someplace on the east side. It wasn't too far. I could ride there in a couple hours. Unless I could convince Olga to drive me. But I knew she wouldn't let me go if I showed her the letter. It was too cryptic.

But the possibility that Arnold was alive and well was too exciting to pass up. I quickly gathered some essentials together in my backpack, and climbed out the window. I wouldn't even bother telling Olga I was leaving. She'd figure it out when I didn't come down for dinner, anyway.

The ride was uneventful. I won't even go into it. But when I came to the street, I saw at once that I wasn't in a good neighborhood. And to make it worse, it was getting dark really quickly. I knew it wasn't safe to be here, but my determination to find Arnold pushed me forward.

The building was a small, run-down dump. It was probably a house at one point, but not anymore. A disgusting trash can lay on it's side right inside the gate, and when I approached it a rat scurried from it to the other side of the yard.

I tripped my way over some other things that I won't mention, and finally reached the front door. I knocked. It opened.

"You must be Helga," came a woman's voice. "Please, come in. Arnold's anxious to see you."

This was really creepy. I mean, really creepy. I followed the woman, who's features I couldn't really make out in the dark, back into the house. I heard the door slam behind me, and knew at once that I shouldn't have come.

"Now, if you'll just sit here, I'll go get him."

I did what she said, more out of fear than anything. I didn't want to die, but I was sure now that I was going to. The woman left the room and walked upstairs. It was so dark, I didn't know how she could see where she was going. I could barely make out the table, and I was sitting at it. A streetlight was visible from the window over the sink, and on impulse I leapt over to it and threw it open. The woman returned just as I did so.

"Now now, what do you think you're doing?" she asked, flipping the light switch on. "What are you doing in my house?!"

I stared at her, a little confused to say the least. She was running for the phone, dialing 911.

The next thing I knew, I was sitting in a jail cell, waiting until Olga could get there to bail me out. She came through the entrance, her face completely clouded. She waited as they opened the cell door and escorted me to the front, where she had more papers to sign. Finally, we were in the car and on the way home.

She finally broke the ice. "What the heck were you doing?!"

I stared down at my lap, as confused--if not more so--than she was. "The letter," I said, raising my eyebrows at her. "It told me that Arnold was there, and that he . . . wanted to see me!"

She gave me a funny look, then said, "What letter?"

"The letter, the one that came in the mail today! You set it on the desk, remember? You were making supper, I came downstairs . . . remember?!"

She looked at me gravely, then sighed. "Nothing like that happened, Helga. Maybe you were sleepwalking. . . . But how on earth could you get so far from home?!"

I turned and stared out the window. What was the matter with me? Was I insane? . . . Probably.

I didn't sleep much at all that night. I just kept seeing that woman, leading me through endless dark hallways, around and around. And despite the fact that I wasn't asleep, I couldn't wake up. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't erase the . . . the realness of it.

I finally did sleep, and it was only then that my nightmare stopped. But I was no closer to having Arnold than I had been.

I was desperate. I needed to find him, to help him. That dream, or vision, or whatever the heck it was had to have been for a reason! Things like that just don't happen without a reason!

Unless you're insane . . .