I Never Really Understood It ...

• William Pitney, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2015

I never really understood…
William Pitney

I never really understood it. The anger.
“Hey David.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” A clatter of whimsical giggling filled the bus. Not this again.
“Nice head Brownie.” The phrase flew over him accompanied by a thump to the chest, which would rise to bruise tomorrow on David’s chubby, paper white skin and sooner scar his paper heart. Quentin sneered. He was of those bruteish Neanderthals that used fists as a substite for words, “it’s only a joke mate.”
It always is.
Smiling it off, he glanced over to his friend Harry. Well, he used to be his friend, he hung out with the other kids these days. Cooler kids.
Grinding brakes of the bus abruptly halted infront of the school. You could notice the timely decay of the building from eons of harsh temperamental weather, and lack of maintenance. The fractured paint caught, lost, falling with the wind. Wrinkled weatherboards and crumbling slate steps falling away from burdened feet.
The bus doors dismissed the students and they untidily clambered to get off.
Pushing and jostling to the only way out. David waited at his solemn window seat again to get off the bus. He was always the last anyway, even if he didn’t want to be, but it wasn’t a big deal. As he sat, gazing out the window, among the disarray, he saw a lonesome flower stand out between the cracks in the path. A delicate hidden magnificence shunnned by a sea of turmoil. A real gem. That was, before Quentin stomped on it.
Quentin stood on plants. He squished them. Kicked them out of the ground. And everyone followed in suit behind.
It was fifth period and David had again grinded through another day of school undetected, lurking in the back. One more period, he thought, that’s all he needed and then he could leave.
Out the classroom, hawking at the end of the hallway loitered Quentin with a snide grin strung along his callous jaw.
“Hey David!” he barely heard before David Brown was dressed with a school trash can being spilled onto his shoulders. Laughter.
All he heard was laughter.
The shaking began at his toes. The darkness encompassed him. The pain surged through him. David broke.
Forcing his way through the crowd of snickering he ran up the stairs. Up the levels to the roof where he overlooked the city. The damp, paper skies obstructed any sunlight. He felt the water knock on his nose and trickle around the border of his lips, steadily, sliding down to his chin. Clinging on before falling. The toes of his worn shoes danced off the edge of the roof.

“Hey David.”
It was Harry.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking mate but just come here and we can talk about it. I’m not going to leave you Davo.” Davo. Nobody had called him Davo in a long time. “I can’t go back Harry, not after this.”
“Yes you can, don’t do anything stupid, trust me. It gets better.”
“It won’t!” David pleaded, “I wanted them to leave me alone. I just wanted them to like me.”
“I know Davo, that’s what all want. It’s going to be okay mate, just come here.”
“It hurts Harry… in here!” Pressing his finger to the left side of his chest. “Please Dave.”
“Sorry.”
And just like that he fell. Untouchable. All the anguish couldn’t get to him now.
David’s body lay among the school flower bed contorted and wound.
“Hey David.”
Nothing.

I never really understand, the anger. This hate that soils the seeds of our lives. The cruelty that waters them. Being never satisfied, this nsatiable vision stemmed from the ground at which we rise. We see some flourish, sprouting away from the masses. We see the number stomped out, gone with the rains. How did we learn to nurture this, to feed our young with the sustenance we call hate. To preach that being different is worse than conforming to the masses and that enduring youth is a form of survival. I will never really understand it.