• The electric buzzing sound of the alarm clock coming from his sisters upstairs room ubruptly pulled Thomas from his dreary dreams at 6:00 am, God knows why she wakes this early on a Saturday morning, maybe she forgot to reset it...?. Back to his dream, why oh why did it have to end, this one had been quite interesting actually. Unlike all his other dreams this particular one had been....happy compared to his usual dreams, more or less. Well there had been butterflies...he thought intently, bleak grey ones with huge pincers on the tips of their antenae. He frowned thinking harder, trying to drag out his memories from the deepest part of his unconcious mind finding something else happy, even remotely so. And there had been a pony, half-starved with odd lumps sticking out at peculiar angles where his bones should have been, but it was still better than being stalked by death and torture. It was still better than waking in the middle of the night shrieking and sobbing, desperatly calling for help for the unknown victims of which he dreamt. Slowly, robotically almost, he pushed the sheets off his bed with his hands and swung his legs over the side of his bed groping in the morning light for his black chair that meant painless mobility and easy conversation with those around him. Thomas's fingers wrapped around the cold metal frame of his special chair pulling it toward him inch by inch, slow progress but it was effective none the less.
    Thomas eased himself into the wheelchair, adjusted his legs with his hands into the right position and strapped them in so that his useless, rubber hose legs wouldn't randomly fall to one side as he rolled around the house. As silently as he could Thomas rolled across the wooden floor in his room, avoiding all the spots he knew would creak in protest against his wheel-chair, just in case. Everyone would be awake by now, Thomas knew, but he wanted to prove he could make it to the downstairs kitchen by himself. His family had given him the liberty of the only downstairs bedroom (which happened to be just as big as his old house) only because of his "condition" he scoffed. I can get around just fine, he thought to himself. Rubbing the last bit of sleep from his eyes he pushed the handi-cap button on the side of the wall that opened the door automatically for him, he had protested against this fine little installment with quite a bit of force, this was back when he didn't want to admit he had actually been paralized from the hips down for the rest of his life.
    When thomas was 13 years old, he suffered from a major stroke that caused him to be partially paralized for the rest of his life. He had always been a fragile, vegetable of a boy, often suffering from broken bones, pnemonia, minor strokes and other illnesses. But that one time it had been the worse of them all. It was a hot summer day and Thomas and his family of four had been visiting his grandpartents in Toronto, Canada for their yearly hiking trip. Feeling fine and eagerly awaiting the exploit ahead, Thomas and Anya (who had been 14 at the time) were clad in new expensive hiking gear that smelled like the outdoors all ready. They were all just waiting for Grandma Mary and Grandpa Jo to arrive at the hiking base at the bottom of the mountain. When they arrived, they had set off up into the the mountain, marveling at the wildlife and scenery. Mom had stopped to take a picture of a humming bird of some kind when Thomas had started to feel dizzy and soon had an intnse migrain. He sat on a rotting log trying to regain his coordination pressing his hand to his forehead and willing his headache to go away. "Whats the matter Tommy?" His sister had sneered at him from above, "Getting tired already?" He tried to mock-punch her lightly on the shoulder, but missed completely and had fallen off the log. He'd blacked out after that, except for a few screams and calls for help. He woke up on a lumpy hospital bed with a nurse jabbing some sort of IV into his arm and someone recounting the events of the day to him...Including the fact that he was paralized.
    "Tommy! What are you doing!", his mother yelled, practically in hysterics. He had been so caught up in his memories he haden't even heard her approach him. Thomas was still pressing the blue handi-cap button on the wall and a small beeping noise was going off because of it. Well Tommy boy, I guess this is what you get for having an over-protective mother, He glanced up at her moodily. "Going to the bathroom, wanna come?", he asked sarcastically she gave him an angry glance, but didn't yell, Thats one of the highs you get from being crippled, sympathy. No matter what you do wrong, you never get yelled at or grounded, people think "Poor kid, he's probably so cranky because he's stuck in that chair all day long". Which is true, it does get irritating, but I'm not the kind to take it out on other people. I kind of like to...wallow in my misery, my dreams make me suffer enough. His Mom wheeled him toward the kitchen and placed his chair at the head of the table, right across from where Thomas's dad was seated reading a newspaper and sipping at some black coffee before work. Anya, who was an early riser was sitting next to him eating her cereal in a stony silence glaring at him from behind the box of Frosted Flakes.
    Thomas stared back at her, wondering what was going on, no one was ever this quiet at breakfast. He spooned some cereal into his mouth and took a sip of orange juice before he spoke, everyone tensed involuntarily at the sound of his husky voice except for his mother, who was frying up some bacon for his father almost too cheerily. "What's going on?", he asked anxiously, whenever they were in moods like this it had something to do with his health or hospitals or needles... Thomas gave a shiver and spoke louder after he got no response for several minutes "What's going on!" Everyone was just staring at him now even Anya, then unexpectedly Anya burst into uncontrollable tears and sobs, "You! You're the problem!" She shoved her selfaway from the table and placed her two shaking hands on the back of her chair and yelled, "You and your issues!" and stalked off fuming towards her bedroom.