There is a boy in my Spanish class who cant stop laughing. One day a student was talking about how she knows a man who just died of Aids. He laughed. One day a student was talking about how her cousin was raped. He laughed. One day the teacher admitted her husband was extremely sick, and in the hospital. When she removed her self from the room to calm her self down, he laughed. One day I became so fed up with all the laughing I asked him why he thought things that were destroying peoples lives were so funny? He responded “ Because”.

Well wow, I think to my self. What a mature kid. He seems like a real catch. The whole semester he kept it up, and I got to the point where I could not be near him or I would have urges to reach across the table and slap him. I could not understand why some one would mock another persons pain. That’s just inhumane, and completely immature. It made me think of the things I have been through in my life, I wondered if he would think those stories were funny as well.

On the last day of the semester I was talking to a friend of mine about how “ ecstatic” I was about being finished having him around every day. I continued to explain how I despised his laughing, and mockery of things that were not funny. At first she agreed, but then hesitated. “ I think I know why he is the way he is” she said. “ Well what do you mean” I whispered, looking around hoping he was no where near. “
I’m friends with his older brother, A year ago they lost their mother to breast cancer, and they have no contact with their dad, he has had it really rough, and his brother says that he makes a joke out of it, only to play it off like he is not really in pain” I don’t know what rushed over me in that moment, but I felt my eyes welt up and my throat blister in sadness. I forced it back, and looked across at the laughing boy. Today he is sitting on his desk, fiddling with a pen, alone. There is something in his eyes that shouts out pain, and misery, and suddenly I realize he does not think any of these things are funny. He hates cruelness, and illness in the world as much as the rest of us, he is just to scared to hate it. It turns out the laughing boys laugh’s aren’t laughs after all. They are cries, and he needs a friend.