It's no secret that I was... socially awkward in middle school. And by that, I mean I had a target painted on my back by every sadistic neanderthal thug that ever graced the school's attendance roster. And by the time high school rolled around, I had come to the realization that society didn't have a place for me; so I set out to carve one for myself. That realization helped propel me to more deeply invest in my fire service training, as well as deeper study in my faith, and broadening my reading spectrum. I was going to be who I was going to be, the world be damned as far as I was concerned.
Well, the good news is that those years formed the catalyst that created a lot of who I am today, or at least a lot of the raw materials, my wife will attest to how much work there was left to do when she met me in college. Still, I there are come ghosts I carried with me all of those years, and one of them was the memory of the torment that I was run through in middle school at the hands of the unchecked bullies. I'm still passionate on the subject, and when asked, I'll tell any kid to run when he can, but to draw blood (and draw a lot of it ["Foamy the Squirrel" NSFW]) when cornered. As far as I am concerned, once you have gotten to the point of tormenting others without mercy, you've fortified the right to a diplomatic solution.
Parallel to this, I have been writing (well, composing, I type almost all of my work) most of my life. The art of the story, and later, the art of character development were critical to helping me deal with a lot off life's challenges. A couple years ago I saw down to write something... wasn't even really sure what I was up to, but I just wanted to write something in the mystery genera. I think I was halfway through it before I realized some of the aforementioned ghosts of my formative years were sitting on my shoulders and prompting me. I didn't mind, though, the catharsis of it felt good, the ability put to paper some of my emotions helped me deal with some of the communication issues I had had recently. There were, and still are people out there who don't know how bullying is, and frankly aren't willing to accept that the solution to the problem can (at times) be only slightly less brutal than the result if the issue is left unchecked.
Anyway... all of that, and a lot more came together for this. Its not finalized; I haven't managed to do an editing pass on it, and I'm not sure I want to just yet. But I did want to see what people thought.
So, I present you to:
A short story by
Cisco Cividanes.
HEHE! "You're a humanitarian!" -- Foamy
ReplyDeleteI'm no critic, but it seems like you have a really purposeful and consistent voice throughout. It's a thought-provoking story. I can really relate to both Rick and Trudy, and their choices, even though I'm not sure, in their places, if I would make the same choices. The issue of whether or not their choices were "right" is so cloudy that it sucks you into seeing the situation through their eyes. I felt like the narrative walked (almost presciently) along my "if I were Trudy, what would I do?" thought process.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, an excellent story. It might not win you political brownie points, but I agree with both Foamy and this story: the only way to stop bullying is to fight back. I love this quote from Rick: "so long as you people keep treating these monsters like little kids, or turning a blind eye to the day-in-day-out torment that people like me have to go through... your system... your fucked-up system [...] is nothing."