absence (fiction)

What is your name?

My name is Shelly. I am ……………..

Shelly eyes did not blinking. Not starring. She was not moving. Not doing a thing.

I ask her, ‘Shelly, how old are you?’ she starts moving but she did not answering me.

I asked her again.

Shelly, how old is you?

I’m five teacher.

She smiled and then sat down. I asked her the reason why she is not answering me but she says she didn’t hear me. I think it was normal for her to do that then I ignore it.

As a kindergarten teacher, I love to interact with kids. Although some of them were naughty but they still can be good kids. So as Shelly. I like her. She was intelligence and also cute. Sometimes she even was trying to help her friends by taking good care of the classroom bunny. How nice of her. But, I never knew that she was sick. The sickness was unnoticeable. It was a shame of me as a teacher for not noticing it in the first time. I never knew such thing could happen. Until that time, I saw it again.

Ding… dong…. The father clock in the classroom was ringing. I said to the class, ‘okay kids, its lunch. Now take out your lunch box and cup. Today special is choc drink with marshmallow. Wash your hands first okay’

All the children cheering. They take out their lunch box and a cup. After that they queued up to go to the washroom as usual to wash their hands. On that time, I noticed Shelly was at the fifth row. She was waiting. I heard her talking.

Today is choc drink. I li…

I heard a pause and a total silence of her. I check on her with just my eyes. I thought that she just stop talking because she need to move or doing something but I was wrong. She just stop and not moving at all. Her eyes did not blink also. She seems like a stone sculpture.

I counted…. One… two… three…. Five….. Seven….. Ten…..

Ten seconds pass. She started to blink her eyes again. I heard her friend asked her what she was talking before; she just said that she did not remember it.

Was she seems like off or shut down just now? Or was she daydreaming?

Nah, its okay. I think she was daydreaming. But, that what I think but not what I saw.

It happened again when all the children were eating. While I was take care of the other kids, I spot Shelly was trying to pour additional drink in her cup. Then, suddenly….

The cup full and ever flooding out of it. Shelly just stopped moving and her eyes were not blinking. The duration was the same. Ten seconds!

It was not daydreaming if it was like that. I was sure of it. I never saw a child with that behaviour before. Although after the ten seconds Shelly can move but she do not aware of what she was doing during the non-movement. That’s made me worried about her. But, I just keep it silence until the day ended.

When all the children when home, I sat at the teacher’s room. I took out my phone and looked the video again. It was a video of today practise. Yeah, a practise for mother’s day next week. A song sang by the children. Then I noticed it again in the video. It was shelly! She had been paused for about ten seconds again!

The next day, I called her mother. I asked her was there any strange thing happen to Shelly or was she sick? Her mother said nothing about it. She said that Shelly was healthy and she was okay. I felt bad about Shelly so I asked my friend about what I just saw.

That evening, I met Jenny, my friend the doctor. I asked her about Shelly. She said

Shelly needs to see a doctor as soon as possible. If not, this may affect her learning process.

I asked her why she said that. Jenny just said it was seizure. I was surprised to hear that. A five year old girl had seizure. It could be dangerous. But, how was I going to tell her mother?

The next day, with all courage, I met her mother.

Madame Clark, Shelly was unwell. You need to take her to the doctor.

Madame Clark was shocked to hear that from me.

I showed her the video. For her mother, it seems that Shelly was daydreaming. Then, I showed her another two video that I secretly take. Madame Clark was angry to see that. She scolded Shelly in front of me.

Shelly! I put you here to learn not to daydream!

Shelly was crying. Madame Clark still scolding her. I never aspect that her mother would do that to her.

I tried to stop her mother. I took her by my side.

Madame, please! Don’t scold her. She just doesn’t know. She just has seizure.

What?

Her mother stopped. She cried.

I was surprised to see that from her. I asked her,

Are always see her like that? Are you scolding her every time she did that?

She even cried louder. She called her daughter. It seems like she was begging her.

Shelly….. Shelly…. My sweet heart.. Shelly… I’m sorry dear…  I love you…

Mommy… I love you too…

They both crying. I’m crying too because I never expect that the situation had nearly becoming a bad impact for her. Thank goodness that I tell her mother.

Now, Shelly was taking some treatment for her seizure. It was called absence seizure and I will always remember it and make sure that no one will scold their child for having seizure anymore. I love you too, Shelly.