easy life of childhood ·
24 July 04

Always the weird one, always the odd one out. The freak, the joker, the fool. Going to school were the happy days, where even my teachers picked on me, discriminated against me.

Well discriminate would probably be a harsh word, I brought it on myself, but back then mental illness or behaviour such as mine wasn’t considered a cry for help, it was considered evil and punishable by making me worse.

I remember once, I was probably 6 or 7, and it was Christmas time soon. The teacher had this small tree, I think her name was, well it began with H. It might have been Mrs Hilden or something. She used to be really good to me, but she became meaner and meaner. Very harsh in fact. So it was coming up to Christmas, she had this tree. All the kids in the class sat down on the floor, and she said everyone could place an object on the tree from the box.

Everyone did it, then it was my turn, well there were a few more after me, but I was up next. I refused, and she asked why, I said I didn’t want to. Actually, I don’t think was rebellion, it was more…angst, depression, hatred, and I don’t know where the hell it came from.

There was a box, a large toy box. It was always locked, in fact I don’t think they ever opened it. I used to wonder what was inside.

“Are you going to join in behave like a baby?”

“I’m seven!”

“Everyone here has joined in, why are you being such a spiteful little boy? What would your mother say?”

“I won’t do it. I don’t WANT TO do it. It’s stupid. I feel sick.”

“Stop making excuses. I’ll ask you once more to join in, are you going to?”

“Meh meh meh meh meh meh meh”

“Right, well you can sit there and be miserable while everyone else has fun. We won’t ever involve you in activities again ok? We’ll exclude you from everything. In fact, I want you to sit in the corner, alone, away from all the good children. Bad boys don’t deserve to be with the good children. You’re a nasty little child.”

And that was that, I sat in the corner, and faced the big sheet of paper where it had the numbers 1 to 10 in words, but written in French, Spanish, German, Italian and I think Japanese. I don’t remember it, Christ I was only six.
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But I remember staring at it, and thinking a big dragon would come and kill everyone with a huge flame. It was a big dark, nasty, dirty purple dragon. Only parts of it would glisten, it’s teeth were bloody with its defenceless victims, it’s stomach hungry for more food, and it’s claws riding for a grabbing. It would come and kill my teacher, and destroy the tree, and then it would take me away from all of this, from everyone, and I would ride the dragon and kill everyone I hated. I never realised I had so much hate then.

I also remember Sofia Waka. How could I forget a girl with more dandruff in her hair than Head & Shoulders sold shampoo? She used to flake the tables, the floor, the books, everything. She must have had a drier scalp than the Sahara, because it just never stopped flaking. I always made her cry by saying “Wakka Wakka Wakka” in Fozzie’s voice as a kid. I always used to get into trouble for it. I missed so many of my playground breaks.

Then one day, for no reason other than to cause pain and be a problem, I pulled her ponytails and slammed her head on to the table. There was a thud, tears followed, and then the wailing of a screaming banshee. She and three of her friends started pulling at my hair. It wasn’t a lot of fun. Add to the hysteria, the teacher naturally came over. This was Mrs Toys or something, she had such a weird name. It used to be something else, something even weirder and everyone wondered why she always go weird surnames. She seemed to change her surname every other year. Then we realised the slag was marrying a helluva lot.

In fact, I want you to sit in the corner, alone, away from all the good children. Bad boys don’t deserve to be with the good children.

Anyway, Mrs Toys came over, and she saw Sofia crying. I remember before her coming over, I tried to calm Sofia down saying,

“Shut up you stupid idiot.”

Of course this only seemed to antagonize matters even further so I wondered what else I could do. I pulled her hair even more, and smiled at her, so as to show I was joking, It didn’t work. She cried even more, and all the class was watching and calling me a nasty boy. Even the guys hated me for it, and said they were going to tell the teacher. So I said to her,

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to hit you till you’re dead.”

Then Mrs Toys came over, and asked about the commotion. I acted all innocent and said that she just started crying. Of course this was in the light of the fact, and over the voices that accused quite rightly that I was the one who pulled her hair. I remember, I had nasty flakes in my hand and her hair was dry and easily pulled, I had bits of it in my hand, almost bunches. Mrs Toys looked at me, and said,

“You evil little boy. How could do that to her? What did she do to you? How would you like it if I did it to you?”
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She then proceeded to pull my hair, and then twisted my ear, while Sofia kicked me in the balls. I fell to my knees. I don’t remember whether or not Mrs Toys noticed the testicle football Sofia played, that fucking bitch. Pull my hair, but don’t kick a guy in the balls. She dragged me up by my ear and pulled me, and told me stand on the corner of the door.

The reason for this was because she was going to be on playground duty, she could see me, and I could see her and all the other kids having fun. The second reason was because kids and teachers could still open the door and hit me by opening it. To be honest, everyone made sure they didn’t hit me, except the punks and the teachers that hated me. A lot of teachers hated me. But even then, I don’t think they really hated me, they hated the fact that I was trouble.

The stress I could place a teacher was just incredible. At six or seven, I wasn’t just a terror, I was the devil. I would flip tables, I would physically fight with teachers, male or female, and get beaten to a pulp away from the children. I would be locked in rooms on my own, be separated from everyone in everything. It spurred me on to hate even more, to become worse, and I did, and they did too.

There was a thud, tears followed, and then the wailing of a screaming banshee. She and three of her friends started pulling at my hair.
I wasn’t always bad, I used to be a really good kid. A good kid, that pretended to be a good kid. I used to copy the other kids go to sleep when I was even younger, in Reception (which is like Kindergarten), during story time. I tried to join in with that the other kids were doing, but they never interested me. If someone played with me, I’d end up knocking 100 shades of shit out of them.

When it rained, however, I don’t know why, but I slowed down, to the point of being calm. Watching the rain come down, watching the light become dark, watching the repeated pattern of rain fall hit the ground, hit the toys outside, grass the windows. It was uniform, it was free to do whatever it wanted to, without rules, without restriction. When it wanted to rain, it rained, and no one could stop it. If you got caught in that rain, you were caught and touched by the rain, it didn’t care whether you were or not.

Watching the rain from the inside was meditative. The sound of the pattering of rain against the window and the ground, against object was really soothing. On the outside, you had absolute darkness, gray clouds and no soul in sight. Inside, we had the lights on, and it was much brighter, sort of like having a night time, but in the afternoon. It was surreal but wonderful.
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The contrast engaged me. There was a song our teachers sang, and made us sing with them. I fucking hated the song, because it took away my rain, my only real friend, the only one that talked to me. The song went something like,

“Rain, Rain
Go away
Come back on another day”

Or something to that effect. It was a simple rhyme I suppose than a song, but it was simple enough that the whole fucking class looked out the window, believed in absolutely and expected it to work. They wanted the rain to go away, the fucking bastards, because they wanted their fucking rainbow. I hated the rainbow, I hated the fact that it didn’t happen until the rain disappeared and everyone would then forget about the rain, and just look at the rainbow in awe. I sometimes wondered if the rainbow would collapse on us and kill us all, like a real bridge. Or if it was actually so far high up that if we went that far, we would stop breathing and die.

I tried to join in with that the other kids were doing, but they never interested me. If someone played with me, I’d end up knocking 100 shades of shit out of them.
There was a box, a large toy box. It was always locked, in fact I don’t think they ever opened it. I used to wonder what was inside. Sometimes I would lift it as much as I could, and it was barely a crack, but I would convince myself that something evil lived in there. Like a monster, and if I let the monster out it eat everyone.

But, it would eat me first because I let it out, but then I would ask it to eat me last as I wanted to see everyone else get eaten. And while it was eating everyone else, I would run away and the school would blow up, and magically turn into a big red mushroom. And there would be a new school called the mushroom school. Where everyone was taught magic.

Weird times.