Bureaucracy Theme Analysis

I’m about to start a new school.

I’m an only child.

I’m adopted.

And I’m different.

As in strange.

DOES YOUR OUTFIT SAY WHAT YOU WANT IT TO?

It only took him three months on the job to get the Dell Duke Counseling System in shape.

He placed all of the kids he saw into four groups of THE STRANGE.

First, there were the MISFITS.

Then the ODDBALLS.

Next were the LONE WOLVES.

And finally, the WEIRDOS.

Of course, Dell wasn’t supposed to give the kids any kind of classifications, but what good is an organizing system without methods of separation?

The route took him directly by the school district offices and that was when he saw Cheddar sitting in the still-hot sun on top of a once green Dumpster at the south side of the parking lot.

Dell didn’t even brake to get a better look.

There were rats on the property. That was just a fact.

As far as Dell was concerned, Cheddar could pull his own weight back there. And maybe shed a pound or two in the process.

The woman looks stunned by the clarity of the communication.

Or maybe the intense expression on her face is normal.

Either way, it is a relief that she doesn’t smile.

He’s being moved out of his English class and put into some kind of Honors/AP program.

The man with the ear issue goes into a back area and returns with a book filled with the notes from hearings.

For a second I find the connection interesting. He’s in charge of the hearings—and something happened to the outer covering of what he uses to hear.

But I don’t obsess on that.

The man watches me with real intensity as I leaf through the documents.

The garden in the center of our apartment complex does not need the approval of elected officials to be transformed, but I want whatever I submit to the bank to appear very professional.

Therefore, Mr. Duke, in addition to granting you permission to plant a garden in the central, uncovered atrium, we have made the decision to ask you to be the Building Representative for the Gardens of Glenwood.

I go to Lenore’s account.

When I look at her e-mail, I suddenly feel sorry for her.

She appears to be massively overworked. There is e-mail from juvenile court, from schools, from the police department.

But the important thing is that for today, they are granted, jointly, the guardianship, which is on track to not be temporary, of a person named Willow Chance.

That’s now legal.

I get up and pick a spot off to the side where I know there might be space for something of size to grow. I punch my finger into the dirt to make a small hole, and I drop in the brown nut.

I return to the stairs, and as I sit here in a slice of winter sunlight, two small birds find their way down to the honeysuckle planted next to the bamboo.

They speak to me, not in words, but in action.

They tell me that life goes on.