Nobody Small

By Doris Marie Davis

Nobody Small-a story of love and need. A dwarf named Nobody Small, a curious, cute tiny boy with a tenacious drive and unyielding loyalty to God, perseveres on an unbelievable journey. Sincere and serious in his search for love, a new family, and home, he prays for closure every day. Unsure of his future, being so young and so small, he relentlessly braves the toughest trials in his urgent quest, surpassing all odds of survival in a highly judgmental world. Years earlier, he learned of his abandonment as an infant and was reared by loving foster parents. Nevertheless, he yearned to know what prompted his parents' decision and queried the rationale of such an inhumane act. At last, after many weary days of sleeping in places his tiny frame would fit, eating discarded packaged food left on the ground or in trash cans, and drinking water or soda in capped bottles, he finally approaches a large white house with a warm, inviting, ornate brown front door. Once inside this welcoming abode, his unstable life makes a complete about-face! Sally, the owner, has an adorable cat named Momar, who instantly attaches himself to the tiny stranger. Her grandchildren soon expose Nobody to unimaginable sights and sounds as they take him on a long walk with an itchy desire to explore an old church under renovation. Before his admittance to the hospital, nobody meets and befriends a horse named Barney. This encounter divulges to him the fascinating world of a grand equestrian lifestyle. He constantly thanks God for answering his list of human desires. However, multiple surprises are waiting in the near future for this once-unhappy orphaned child, all planned by God and unfolding in his time-only in His time!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635753288

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Nobody Small

Doris Marie Davis

ISBN 978-1-63575-327-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63575-328-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2017 by Doris Marie Davis

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

1

Length of Life

A dwarf on a giant’s shoulders sees farther of the two.

—George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum

A new day, another day to see Nobody Small. Yes, he was small in stature, yet tall in spirit—determined to survive life’s unexpected, unwarranted cruelties. He, a lonely child, yearned to belong, needed to be loved, prayed to be loved. Yes, a person’s love was most vital in his mind, his most significant entity. That overwhelming desire was prevalent, and he’d search day after day, week after week, until it was his!

Night befell to a dazzling dawn. Brilliant sunrays lit up a cloud-free sky! Could this sun-drenched day differ from previous yesterdays? Would it modify Nobody’s loneliness? Would it ease his soul’s turmoil? Maybe so. Maybe not. Perhaps the sun’s light might lift his saddened spirits, not warranted of such a small young boy, a boy with countless desires to be fulfilled.

The child, Nobody Small—abnormally undersized with curly black hair, dressed in jeans, a short-sleeved white sweater, and tan sneakers—stood on an old white wooden ladder-back chair, staring straight ahead, in deep thought about his future. Unhappy and uncertain, he thought of what the subsequent days and weeks held for him. He often wished he had a pair of binoculars. With those field glasses, he’d see much further away, perhaps even years away.

His large hazel eyes viewed each morning’s newness from the upstairs bedroom window, blurred with months of grimy fingerprints, his own fingerprints that were never removed. It was the same dirty smudged, fingerprinted window he’d stared through for years on every visit to their home. Actually, he looked forward to those infrequent spur-of-the-moment visits. Why? Because the neglected room held majestic powers just for him. Now it was his permanent home.

The white weathered clapboard house was the third home Nobody had ever known.

The once-grand Victorian/Georgian farmhouse with an upper-story verandah and wrought iron lattice no longer existed; it now belonged to one of his foster parent’s daughters. It had been her mother’s parents’ cherished home for decades. In need of much repair and love, the old family farmhouse stood tall and firm—but screamed for help! Slowly, specific needs were repaired, which lifted the house’s spirit, only not fast enough. Now this room belonged to him. He could love it. He could clean it, plus improve its interior as he pleased.

This special window allowed Nobody little insight to the outside world, a world he yearned to see, to embrace. He imagined soaring and floating through the freshness of each new morning, miles away from where he stood. Unafraid of his new adventurous journey, he envisioned himself elsewhere in a strange distant but unique and fascinating town that offered him a plethora of advantages so long desired.

Eager to find that unknown place, Nobody puckered his lips and breathed warm air onto the double-hung window’s bottom row of three small windowpanes. That heated, misted area meant he’d clean larger window sections while his small fingers moved rapidly across and around the cool grimy glass to the mullions, the upright dividing bars in the window. Often, he wrote his name or drew pictures on the windowpanes of what he saw outside while standing inside his dirty, dusty, smelly sleeping quarters called a bedroom! Because the room was never aired between his infrequent visits, each time he came, he’d rush through the door, run toward the windows, then raise the two side-by-side double-hung windows as quickly as he could! Wow! He thought, I wonder, does this room ever thank me for the cool morning’s fresh air I let inside every time I come here? I hope so because it surely does need it!

Dated, damaged, discolored wallpaper and collapsed, crumbled, faded blue wall plaster lay in piles around the room’s perimeter, having tumbled to the floor unnoticed by its owner who rarely went upstairs anyway. Even the ceiling’s paint was peeling, falling on the floor in large flakes and slivers, with barely any floor space left to walk. The set of twin beds’ noncovered mattresses against one wall and a long low dresser on the opposite wall collected even more paint chips. A lone television on the low horizontal dresser seemed to stare at him, saying, Thank you, Nobody, I’m so glad you’ve come to clean up my room! Every time you visit, this room is worse!

The previous young boys’ unkempt room screamed for attention. Only this small child’s few drop-ins or stopover visits answered its plea for care and concern. As Nobody leisurely moved around the room, his small body rubbed up against the wall’s rugged uneven surface, revealing its need and dire disrepair. While his tiny round hand slowly moved across the remaining ripped, faded wallpaper, he whispered, I’m here now. I’ll take care of you. I’ll clean you up. I’ll sweep the floor, make the bed, and clean the tattered draperies at your only window. Then we’ll have more magical times together every day. I hope you’re as glad to see me as I’m as happy to be here again. Oh, how I’ve missed you! I’d come more often if I could, but now I’m here to stay.

Nobody stooped down and removed the room’s debris. He placed an old magazine on the floor, brushed trash and ceiling paint flakes onto it, then with both hands, tossed it out the window, to join other mounds of trash on the ground just waiting for more. With bed linens placed in the room before his arrival, he made one of the beds as best he could; then he rested.

The abandoned room had once housed four young boys. The two sets of twins, eighteen months apart, rejoiced every time their tiny friend visited. The five boys played their preferred quiet games inside the house and those fast-running competitive matches outside in the side yard on grass that could be trodden. Those visits were his best, visits with friends he’d never forget!

After the family and twins moved to another city, Nobody had the room all to himself. Once the room was cleaned, he joyfully twirled around in circles as his arms slowly waved up and down like an eagle in flight. In high spirits, he’d sing happy songs, ones he’d learned from the family’s children and others being taught in Sunday school.

The old country home became a grocery store after the verandah collapsed. From a distance, the house appeared to be deserted, until you got closer. On the far right corner of the front was a Coca-Cola machine, still used by passersby. Nobody wondered why the machine remained but never inquired. Now the once-well-maintained home and lawn areas had become an uncared-for house and junkyard filled with wrecked trucks, cars, piles of old tires, and other motorized debris. Chickens with their chicks and ducks and their families leisurely roamed the yard. Dogs lay sleeping or sat scratching their flea-infested manes. A horse or two might be hitched to a tree while its owners resided inside the old run-down structure, oblivious to the outside world. No one cared!

The upstairs forgotten bedroom had become Nobody’s enchanted place to dream, dance, and become someone else other than a poor, lonely small orphan boy. Those cleaned spaces he’d made on the window panes allowed him the opportunity to see outside with possibilities to escape the inside’s dismal hollowness. While he imagined places he’d visit once he detached himself from this nonloving environment, pleasing thoughts warmed his heart as his cheerless spirit softened, relaxed, then continued flowing along its way. Bright, novel ideas stirred within his soul, deep inside his small brain, waiting to be freed! Why? Because he knew once he left, he’d never ever return!

Yes, indeed, he knew positively he’d desert that old neglected house before long. He contemplated daily various means of escape. Nothing he devised ever seemed viable. The practicality of each idea was quickly pigeonholed. Multiple flaws had to be painstakingly thought out and the plan revised. He required something perfect, a plan where he’d never be found where he would simply vanish into obscurity, away from the small country town of Wanton, North Carolina. Suddenly a fresh thought flashed before his eyes, a thought from Ego (his subconscious mind)—a plot that needed no plan: Since no one in that family cares about me, why would they spend their precious time searching for me, a small insignificant soul that doesn’t belong to anyone—an unhappy, lonely tiny nameless orphan in search of a real loving family and heartfelt home?

As he stared out into the morning’s sunlight, he remembered stories he’d heard from his first foster parents’ private conversations about how he came to be—a member of their family.

~~~~~~~~

On August 15, 1986, a hot Tuesday night, a young man dressed in a pair of bloodstained overalls, a blue shirt, and worn-out brown high top shoes parked his outmoded blue truck a short distance from the secluded house, far off the main road. Because he’d turned off the truck’s lights and drove ever so slow, no one heard or saw the truck approach. The handsome but tired, miserable-looking tall young man, around twenty years old, with black wavy hair and a slight limp opened the door on his side of the truck and got out. Reluctantly, he turned around then reached over his seat and picked up a small cardboard box on the passenger’s seat. Carefully, he tucked the box under his left arm while his right arm shielded the box’s top.

Cautiously, he moved toward the dimly lit antiquated clapboard country home, avoiding anything that might break the night’s silence. He tiptoed up three jagged wooden steps, placed the box on the weatherworn front porch, turned around, then sneaked back as quietly as he had come from his truck. However, before he reached the truck, thinking he was unnoticed, the family’s fenced-in hound spotted him, as did two children peeking from behind a second-floor curtained window. The dog raced to the fence, ranting and barking! He growled and snarled, alerting his family of the intruder. The young man knew that the dog’s frantic woofs and yaps would definitely inform the family of his late-night call. Their dog’s endless barking plus the baby’s loud cries demanded inquiry; otherwise, the infant might not have survived the night’s unexpected dilemmas.

The father, middle-aged, about five foot ten, Justine Myles, dressed in shabby tattered denim overalls, quickly opened the front door and peered through the screen door. On the porch near the steps, he saw a small half-opened cardboard box. Nervous and tense, he pushed open the rickety screen door then moved toward the strange box. He stooped down, pulled back one top flap, and looked inside. Unprepared for what he saw, he stepped back in shock! Inside was a crying hours-old blanketed newborn baby! Suspicious and wary, he lifted the box then carried it toward the opened screened door, where his family stood watching and waiting in wonder. They stepped aside, allowing Mr. Myles enough space to enter. As he carried the cardboard box through the door, his eyes remained glued on its contents—his exposed precious human gem!

Once inside, Justine Myles placed the box on the kitchen table, still staring down at the unwanted jewel. His concerned family closed in real tight around the blue-and-white-checkered rectangular table where, only minutes earlier, had been cleared of soiled dinner dishes and leftovers. The family stared in wonder. They marveled over the baby, especially the mother, attractive young five-foot-two Samara Myles, who wore a flowing flowered housedress that almost reached the floor. She picked up the infant dressed in soft blue and tucked inside a yellow blanket; then she cradled him in her warm accepting arms, a real mother’s arms.

Samara said with a scowl, "How could a woman give up her baby? Why, this newborn is just hours old! Somebody was in real trouble to abandon her child like this! I guess people do have their pathetic reasons, but I could never put one of my newborn babies in a box then leave it on a stranger’s porch. What kind of mother is she? No! She’s not a mother, just a woman who birthed him!"

She continued to rock the baby as he nursed from his warm bottle of milk that was left wrapped inside a towel and small blanket in the box. The baby boy soon drifted off to sleep, filled with milk and love, nestled in Samara’s arms. Though the noise and excitement had subsided, the family’s bewilderment and disbelief of such an inhumane and heartless act remained. The impoverished family of six—two adults, a nine-month-old baby boy, two-year-old twin girls, and a four-year-old boy—lacked the financial means to get him the immediate medical care he required. Nevertheless, with their unwavering love and acute attention, he survived.

During those years, babies born in poverty-stricken rural areas were frequently delivered at home with or without a midwife. Often, an inexperienced husband delivered his own child when absolutely necessary, which obviously had occurred in this situation. However, they were an unstable young unmarried couple unprepared and unable to care for their child, the family presumed. The baby needed a name. Nobody Small, as he was called, soon acquired his name from the Myles’ children’s family game, a naming contest. Since the winning name Nobody Small seemed appropriate, it won! He was loved and well cared for by a strange family, parents who could barely care for their own four very young children!

~~~~~~~~~~

After revising each plot of how he should leave, Ego told Nobody to discard those plans and pack his schoolbag (even though he didn’t attend school) with everything he needed and run away. He obeyed and left his temporary family without having the slightest idea where he was headed. Being repeatedly reminded and hassled about his small stature, he had developed an inferiority complex. Always having to hold his head far back to see people so high up, his neck often ached. He never complained outwardly, but inwardly, he cried, aching deep, deep down inside. He often wondered why he was so small when everyone else his age was much taller.

At first, people thought his smallness was cute; but as he chronologically aged and not physically, the public’s smiles changed to curiosity, mixed with frowns and uncertainties. The child knew he was different; he knew something was wrong, but what? Eventually, he learned to hide his true inferior self-image and revealed another side—the jovial, happy persona; the side that people admired; the happy, false façade. His sorrowful attitude about himself remained within, silent and carefully restrained.

Nobody walked away from his dismal home in search of a new family, one that would love him as much as his last foster parents, the Myles. As he strolled along deserted dirt and graveled roads—some with houses, others dividing miles of forests–he wondered and imagined that perhaps one of those homes might be his. He roamed aimlessly for two days, carrying his schoolbag that held a change of clothes, a box of crackers, a toothbrush and toothpaste, washcloth and soap, comb and brush. Unaware of how long he’d journey before finding a new home, he realized his body needed to be fed, cleaned, and cared for as usual. He searched for discarded food, half-emptied bottles of water, soda, tea, etc. Animals usually ignored him unless they were as hungry as he was; then he’d race for shelter, anything available and safe.

One evening before dark, as Nobody strolled along a deserted country back road, he noticed an old secluded church not too far away. The abandoned church was so old that the attached lower side had totally collapsed to the ground from neglect. He thought, How can anyone not take care of a church, a place where people serve God? Nobody walked toward the dilapidated structure. He examined it thoroughly before deciding whether or not to enter and investigate inside.

Minutes later, he crawled underneath the crumpled roof and warped damaged boards that were previously outside walls. He slid between two half-buckled wallboards to the inside of the church that had remained intact. Undamaged, it was completely empty, except for five solitary upright pews on the sandy dirt plank floor with rocks of every size strewn throughout the sanctuary. The pews were not lined up in a row but were scattered about various parts of the church, unwanted, left and discarded on purpose.

After walking throughout the interior, checking for any unwanted animals, he grabbed two paper napkins from his schoolbag, cleared one pew of its dust, sat down, and ate one of the apples he’d stored in his schoolbag. As the small child ate his delicious red apple, he thanked God for directing him to His house of worship to rest and to sleep out of harm’s way.

The following morning, after Nobody awoke, he gathered his belongings and slid back through the same two boards that allowed him entry. He continued his venture in search for a home, not sure where but anyplace that God guided him. When he was tired, he crawled and hid under cars parked in family driveways, inside garages, or abandoned houses that were left opened, or any place his tiny frame would fit unnoticed. Whenever he found an unlocked car, he’d crawl inside and sleep on the backseat until morning; then he’d hop out and resume his diligent search for his new home.

However, one morning, he almost got caught when he overslept in a car’s backseat and heard the car door open! Miraculously, he was saved; the elderly man realized he’d forgotten something and returned inside his home. During those few precious minutes, Nobody slipped out, closed the door as quietly as he could, hid behind the car, then moved toward a tall metal barrel near the raised garage door. As soon as the man returned and was seated in the car, Nobody inched around the corner of the garage door opening, then dashed alongside its outside wall and ran as fast and as far away from sight as his little legs could sprint!

Exhausted but pleased with himself, he spied a pile of junk in a backyard far off the road. He ran to the piled-up junk that leaned against the side of the house, looked around before he crawled inside, and tucked himself within an old broken rocker, settling in for a short rest. However, the short rest became a long needed nap. Much later, he awoke well rested but so hungry! Nobody reached inside his schoolbag for that emergency box of saltine crackers he’d popped inside just in case he ran out of money.

The crackers satisfied his hunger, but now he needed something wet to wash them down. He looked around in search of something wet. Suddenly he spotted a water spigot at the far end of the old house. Since the yard was vacant of cars and there were no signs of people, he crept toward the spigot, placed his small plastic cup under the nozzle, and turned it on. Water! Water! While he slowly drank long-awaited cool water from the plastic cup, he thanked God for helping him find it and giving him a place to rest. He then drank a second cup and strolled back to his resting place, pleased with himself. He replaced the empty cup in his book bag and dusted off his shirt, then proceeded toward a destination—unknown.

Although Nobody carried his small book bag like any other schoolchild on his back, at times the heaviness, for such a small frame, weighed him down to the point that he’d stop, remove it, and place it on the ground for several minutes while he rested next to it. He watched vehicles whiz by and often wished he was one of those happy children seated in a passing car with his parents, on their way to visit friends or relatives. Each car disappeared into the distance. More cars, trucks, and vans zoomed by, only adding fuel to his wild and vivid fantasies. My, oh my, how he desired a family of his very own! On occasion, his weary eyes teared up as he dreamed and desired far more than his means entailed. He thought, That’s what dreams are for—to carry us to fun places or give us strange or fascinating things we’d never have otherwise.

On those resting road-break daydreams, he traveled to distant countries like Africa, where he’d interact with rare animals; Australia, to see kangaroos and platypuses; and Japan, for its dazzling fabric colors and designs, plus their exotic gardens! After years of watching exciting TV programs, he yearned to see those world vistas that stretched his visionary aspirations to visit the world’s marvels, the wonders God had provided for His children’s enjoyment and happiness!

Sometimes Nobody bought food at small stores with the money he’d saved from his weekly allowances. He’d saved it for that unexpected escape he’d yearned for so long after his foster parents died in that horrible automobile accident. Now and again, he felt like a fugitive on the run as he investigated safe places to hide, completely out of sight.

After days of hiding from people and animals, sleeping in vacant houses, under shrubs, and other types of illegal shelter, Nobody noticed a small parked truck just low enough for him to climb up and into the back. He crawled under piled-up cardboard boxes, plastic wrappings, and narrow strips of plywood before he discovered an old doghouse just large enough for him to crawl inside. Inside, he found a smelly ruffled-up dog blanket used by the previous occupant. He wrapped the blanket around himself, curled up, and drifted off to sleep for a long-awaited nap. Because the driver got inside his truck without checking the back first, he was unaware of his hidden runaway snoozing in the cozy, welcoming once-vacant but now-occupied doghouse.

Nobody Small felt safe as he peeked from