I wrote this this evening on a prompting from my nephew’s Facebook post: “Are there other humans with the name Reince?” I, being a bit apolitical, missed the reference to now White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus.
Instead, my immediate thought was that such a person would be ridiculed as a child. And being a smart-ass that I am, I would imagine that no child would live long before bullies would get to them. The short answer to his query is none; no one is named Reince and is alive. A gallow’s humor response for a late Saturday reply. For whatever reason, Üter Zörker of The Simpsons sprang to immediate mind.
The Story of a Reince.
There was one once a boy named Reince.
His mother made him lunches of lindburger cheese and iceburg lettuce, along with slices of corned pickles and a bit of Dijon mustard. She wrapped them in wax paper and put them in brown paper bags. She left him missives of “my special boy” and “someday you will do something amazing”, folding them always into origami animals. She had taught herself this from a book from the public library which she borrowed after watching a show on the mysteries of Japan on their local PBS channel. These both, the sandwiches and the origami missives, fed his belly and his soul, respectively. He was loved. And he knew it.
He was a quiet, reflective boy. He generallly ate alone, rereading Marvel Xmen comics, especially episode #34. He knew of eternal love, but in that remote kind of way that only boys like him could imagine, and more so he instinctually knew would never be something reciprocated. Except for maybe from his mother.
But then one day, he saw Jennifer outside and on the swings alone. She was of long flaxon hair that tangled around her face. And more often than not, she was seen tugging it out of her mouth and eyes, it seeming more content to do anything but flow down the sides of her face. Her dress fit snugly, having been passed down from her sister who was everything she was not. She always wore dark brown tube socks no matter the attire, and today one sock did not go as high as the other. She had a poxy face to most, but she was a Viking goddess of lore to Reince, verily a Freya to he, her Odr. Not that she’d know this comparison even if he did, they both only being of 8 years old.
Still, he hardened himself that day, deciding better to venture this gauntlet now than face the Aeries in the afterlife. He put down his lunch from his mother, and neatly folded her handwritten missive back into a crab, and placed it into his pant pocket. His mother always folded paper into crabs whenever she was lonely and missed her husband. It reminded her of that last happy time they had had as a family together at the seashore, right before Reince’s father had simply vanished some years ago. He missed his father. Everyone said he looked and acted just like him. This made Reince happy, even if it made his mother sad.
He tucked in his shirt, and straightened his hand-knit sweater as best he could. He ignored his hair; it was just as unruly Jennifer’s, and not likely to lay flat on his head no matter how he protested it every morning. He walked past the hushed tones of the gaggle of pretty girls who saw his destination, and laughed that even such a lowly a height of Jennifer was still many times above his mean stature. He did not care. He was deaf to these siren calls.
He opened the door from Miss Truewell’s classroom, and ventured into the playground at recess to meet his destiny … he has not been seen since.
