Carry on my wayward son

His legs were dangling and kicking as Thomas struggled to keep his breath steady while squirming around trying to get buckled correctly in the airplane seat that seemed to be engulfing his scrawny body in its massiveness. The older lady next to him tries to reach over and help him but an angry yelp escaped little Tommy’s mouth and he snarled at the woman to leave him alone. You see, nine year old Tommy wasn't much of a people person. As young as he was, living with his dad in a small cabin in the middle of some cold, rainy woods had helped him become a young hermit, taking after his father. So when his mother, (who had left Tommy and his dad when he was just a year old), called and insisted that Tommy’s father put him on a flight to shiny, bright, super populated San Francisco all by himself, Tommy threw a fit. But nonetheless, his dad, who was a man who spoke mainly in grunts, sighed and told Tommy to pack his bag, and the next morning Tommy was struggling to climb into the passenger seat of his father’s barely used, very large blue and rusty pickup truck. Entering the airport, Tommy just froze, his mouth agape, but his dad grunted and shoved him a little bit to get him moving, and before he knew it he was half-halfheartedly waving goodbye while terror filled his tiny chest, (not that he would ever let that show). Now here he was, trying to buckle this complicated awful seat belt on this huge plane, overflowing with a hundred irritating people Tommy had never met in his life, to go meet a mother he didn't even have an old torn photograph of. As he finally heard the click of the seatbelt buckling in, he threw himself back into his seat and let out a deep sigh. He grabbed his earbuds from the pocket of his ripped dark wash jeans, tapped play on his favorite System of a Down album, turned the volume as high up as it could go, and closed his eyes. Tommy was a very pale, very scrawny 9 year old boy. A ratty mess of dark brown curls hung down almost to his collar bones, and his dark brown eyes looked almost black. His resting face looked like a sarcastic sneer, and it looked as if someone had dipped their fingers in light brown paint and flicked it across his face to make the disarray of freckles appear on his nose and cheeks. He had been home-schooled his whole life, and he was almost a complete replica of his dad, down to his band t-shirts and black boots he always wore. In fact, the only thing that even slightly resembled his runaway mother was his smile, and that was only very rarely seen. Looking at half pint Tommy, you could almost see his future of being a sullen, mysterious bad boy. It was almost cliche, and it looked ridiculous on a mere 9 year old. Tommy woke up in a jolt, his iPod and earbuds falling from his body and sliding across the floor, and in his music’s place, the sound of a hundred people screaming filled his ears. He quickly understood what was happening, even though he had never been in a plane. They were crashing. Panic set into his body, but he didn't make a sound. He just sat, staring straight ahead at the back of the seat in front of him, his eyes like those of a deer in the path of an oncoming car, his whole body trembling. The elderly lady next to him softly told him to close his eyes, called him sweetheart, and grasped his tiny hand. Tommy didn't jerk his hand away and glower at her as he usually would have done, he squeezed her hand right back, but kept his eyes wide open. As the woman started weeping, Tommy desperately wished things were going in slow motion, and he cursed his mother for making him go see her stupid self in stupid San Francisco. Thoughts blew through his mind. He wondered what his dad would do when he found out he had died in a plane crash. Would he cry? Would he miss him? Or would he just grumble about how unsafe planes were and light another cigarette? Tommy started crying, which was a rare and very dreadful experience for him, but alas there he was, clenching a strange old lady’s hand on a plane full of screeching people, crying his tough little eyes out as the plane hurdled towards the ground.

(I just wanted to say here that I didn't work very long on this, so there are probably a lot of editing mistakes. I just had this picture in my head and wanted to get it down and get it out there to see what people thought of it! I need opinions!)