The Lost Generation

ADAM

'I- I can't  see! ' the  teenage boy sailed suddenly in horror,  dropping his chemistry  book.  The words are blurred; my head sings. '
   He was seated on a sofa in a pleasant sitting room. There was a couple with a daughter of four with him in the room.  The man stopped reading  a news paper and the woman  stopped knitting. They went to the boy, alarmed, while the  little girl looked on in fright and confusion.    Adam, what is wrong? the  woman whose name was Mary asked as the boy rose to his feet,  his eyes wide and frightened. She held him by the shoulders.
'I cant see! he sailed again. My vision is fading! 'It will return.  Get a grip of yourself.'
'But my head keeps on singing and my brain feels as if it is turning round.  I am dying!
'My God!  gulped Mary.  For a moment she looked  at her husband  helplessly, but seeing he was nearly panic -stricken as she was,  she got a grip of herself and forced the boy back on the sofa.  'Lie down and try to calm down,  please we'll take you to the hospital if you don't feel better. '   'But I am getting worse! he wailed,  struggling weakly. 'Everything is spinning,  screaming, dark mass.  Let go of me!  No, Adam. Lie down. Everything will be all right;Mary assured him.
     They held on to him and stretched him along the sofa.  They loosened his clothes, then Mary opened the window  wider while her husband,  Cole, fanned him with  the newspaper. Cole suggested they should  take  him to the hospital without more ado,  but Mary asked him to wait, since she  noticed the boy was gradually improving. She was right;for after a few minutes he grew calmer.
Mary and Cole were  relieved when, a few minutes later, The boy announced,  I am  beginning to get you into focus and the singing in my head is stopping. 'After a while he sat up, rubbing  his eyes. I am all right now only my eyes are aching. '
' I wonder what else is wrong with you; what made you yell and act like that.  we'll have to have you  checked by a doctor.'  ' I know what is wrong with him, ' Cole said.
He has been reading too much science, mathematics and fiction without a break. He is cracking up, as I knew he would.   Adam is a good boy, ' Mary said fondly.
He  knows  he will be sitting for his Certificate Education this year. You're right, all the same. He never rests. Do you  feel weak in any way,  Adam?
'No just a little dull.'    'Then  take a walk. Fresh air and peace of mind will be good for you.' 'I would rather go to my workshop and do a little practical work. '
'What you need is total relaxation, Adam, ' said Mary. ' don't you go to the community center and see what the other  boys are doing? I don't want you to read or strained your mind until I have the doctor check you on Monday. Go,  but not too far and don't be late for tea. '   Reluctantly, the boy walked out of the apartment, past a cabin of corrugated -iron that served as his workshop as well as Cole's garage,  and slowly through the residential estate, which was a middle class one on the outskirts of the city of California. Mary gazed after him with a little of expression until he disappeared round a corner.  Then she turned from the door to her husband  Cole.
He was fine, well -built man in his late twenties.  Mary had grown to love him and married him because of his  good humour and kindness. But from the beginning she had known he had a wild streak in him; she had hoped to improve him with time.  Now, after five years,
she wondered if she had succeeded.
Cole got into numerous scrapes in his youth,  like making a school girl pregnant, causing a serious motor accident and getting sacked from a good job. These things had made his father, the good Dr Biden stop helping him. He had ordered him to find a wife and settle down or be disowned.   Fortunately for Cole he had found a sensible girl,  Mary at that time a teacher.   Cole was not the only one of Dr Biden's problems.  His elder brother,
James, had cared only for travel and good life; it was he  who had spoiled Cole when he was a young  boy. Biden urged his brother to get married and take his work seriously.
James reluctantly agreed and became the father of Adam.  His excesses continued,  however, and eventually his wife ran away,  leaving him with Adam.  He tried to be good father to the little boy boy  but realisation he had become a total deeper and deeper into debt until at last he was sued  and declared bankrupt.
When James found he had nothing left, he got Adam, who had just begun  his second year of secondary education, took him to California left him with Cole. After that  James went to a plain west of the city with a gallon of petrol. He poured the petrol over himself and set himself alight like a human torch.
   Cole, finding himself with a wife, a daughter and now a cousin on his hands, grew more responsible, much to his father's delight. Cole had been fond of his uncle James in his boy hood,  and grew attached to his son Adam
Adam proved to be a quiet, intelligent boy.  Dr Biden grew attached to him also and offered to educate him.  He was sent to a good school where he did well.  The other students respected him academically, but they laugh at his country ways. He became aloof himself to books and contraptions, with no friends or social life.  Now, after two years,  the strain had apparently become too much for him.