Nothing was louder than the pain screaming from John’s knees but he pretended not to hear it. Bent over scores of crinkled paper, wet paper, brown paper-all the paper he could find, he searched. Running to the stub of an unmanicured fingernail from top to bottom, ignoring the others in the room. He was not alone but he was alone in this. Nobody else was looking for a child they named, loved, and raised for 5 years- just him.
“John please look at me”
“You need to stop”
“ Please! You're frightening me”
He screamed. Every decibel pushing his rage and grief across the room. Pushing the fight from his bones, he allowed himself to feel his aching knees and sat back on his heels. The redness of his eyes looking to the nurse that delivered his child and every other person in the room.
“I have searched the database, nothing”, he said
How would he explain that a child he loved for five years, took to school that very morning, all of a sudden, never existed?
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