It had been a day just as ordinary as the last except for the sweltering heat that bore down from above and Zach’s only wish was to get home from school and take a long swim in the cooling waters of their pool but for him things were about to change in a way that he had never imagined possible. As young Zachary Drench walked through the gate leading to his small comfortable home he stopped to take out the post as he would always do only to notice that this time there was a lot more post than usual, and as he glanced through sorting them into piles it dawned on him that for once there was a pile that was addressed to him and it was considerably bigger than those for his parents. Not knowing what to do he sat there waiting, searching and maybe even hoping that each of those letters would open themselves to him and reveal their hidden content. 

 It wasn’t until his “mother” came looking for him that he realized that almost an hour had past since he had sat down looking at this pile of unopened letters sitting before him and it was the look on his face that made his “mother” inquire as to what was bothering him so much. He said nothing but point to the table, expecting her to open every letter addressed to him and then tell him that they were all meant for the wrong person but to his surprise she asked him why he, himself, had not opened those addressed to him and his response was simple – “I didn’t know if I was allowed to.” You see, he had never received post before and did not know that if he, a child, was allowed to open the letters without prior approval. His “mother” looked at him with compassion in her eyes and nodded a simple approval and without hesitation he tore at the first one excited to see who may have written to him, who knew of him and most of all why they had written to him.

The First was from a teacher, a lecturer at some or other university that had written to enquire about the author of the piece name – Scotland and why! He had many questions that ranged from if it was really written by a 13 year old, what research he had done and what was the driving force behind the piece but along with all these questions he said that as a man of language he had yet to come across a piece that was written to intelligently and with the use of such vivid wording that drew the reader to the Highlands themselves. As he placed the first letter carefully back into its envelope and looked back at what seemed a mountain before him he questioned whether they were real, so he reached his hand out to take another and once again but this time more carefully he opened the next letter and this time it was a lady from New Zealand asking almost the exact same questions and reliving parts from the piece, word for word, as he remembered that he had written them. There were those that argued that such a young man could not write like that, that the words used were too descriptive for such a young mind, others that found fault in the grammar and would tear it apart piece by piece and there were those that were amazed and were begging for more. The positive far outweighed the negative, but to Zach it was the negative that drove him, pushed him to want to do better for the people that did not know him and it was the negative that had him dreaming harder than he had ever done before.

When his father arrived home that day he ran to him, like a small child runs upon seeing a loved one, with tears in his eyes, he did not tell him about the positive but about the negative and with a simple glance at his wife this man simply asked if there was more, if these were the only letters he had received. Tentatively, Zach retreated to the next room only to return holding roughly ten times the amount of letters he had first come to his father with and upon revealing all the letters to him his father smiled and said the only truth that he knew to be true. “Zach, in everything that you do in life, there will be people that doubt you, doubt your ability and doubt the proof they see before them. The only thing you can do, my son, is to surround yourself with those that believe in you for when you pour soul into what you love you shall find more believer than disbelievers.” And with those words he held his son tightly against himself and said the only four words that Zach needed and wanted and craved to hear – We Believe In You.

As the days wore on more and more letters had arrived from around the world, The Netherlands and Germany, Jamaica and Singapore, there were letter from all across the world from lecturers and teachers, students and soldiers, people that had just been given the piece to read and some who it had been sent to on purpose for their knowledge and experience. Zach decided to reply some of the letters and as he did he realised that he was more than he believed he was, for he realised through all the negativity and praise that he was worth the time that was spent on him, that he was a normal boy and there was nothing wrong with him and most of all he realised that he could not have done anything without the help of his “parents.” Maybe they weren’t that bad after all.

He would carry on his usual routine for nothing had changed, he was no more important that the next and therefore he would have to work just as hard as always, but with a simple difference, that maybe, just maybe he now knew what he wanted to be. Or did he? Things were going on around him, people from across the world had written to him and yet here he sat in this old room listening to this old crone speaking about the interesting life of the plant and how it absorbs the carbon dioxide in and releases the ever important oxygen that we breath. His mind raced away with him, presenting him with the faces of people wondering how each person that wrote those letters to him might look. 30 letters he received and to you it might seem low but, to a boy that had never received any, it was a mountain of adventure. The, to him anyway, were far more interesting than the simple life of the ant and its point in the bigger picture.

The studies of chemicals was one of his hardest and he knew that he had to draw within a great well of patience to listen to each word that Mrs. Miles spoke but it was hard when this young man had such a crush upon her. He would shine a bright red each time she would address him or ask of him to do something and it seemed, he hoped, that none was any the wiser to his predicament. At the end of this particular lesson she would ask him to stay behind and as the others all teased him for being in trouble, he was more worried about the test they had written a few days before, the letters and his writing being the furthest thing from his mind and he tentatively went to the front and stood before her, with his head bowed to indicate the shame he felt he asked her reasoning to being summoned in such a fashion. He looked up at her as she spoke and realized that there was no anger or hurt in her face but only that smile that he was so fond of and it was at this moment that he realized that he was not in trouble. She congratulated him on writing such amazing piece and gave her opinions on it, they sat throughout the break time examining each other discussing the very words that he had written and as the bell rang, he, with the crimson red now gushing from his skin, very politely excused himself from her class and almost ran to the next.

Next Chapter: The Rules