Life, the Obstacle Course

Sorry for Making You Take the Fall for My Behaviors, the Words I Couldn’t Say

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Because you didn’t know better, and you’d not want to get punished, so, you’d LIED, translated…

It was in the fifth grade year, there was a classmate, Chih with cerebral palsy, he belonged to the children who were bullied like the slimly, scared me. Based off of our common experiences, we should be, friends, but, because I was physically well, I’d felt, that I was, better than he is, so, on the surfaces, I’d gotten along well with him, but, I’d become like those who’d bullied him psychologically, would often made fun of his immobility, and, I’d even not empathized with him, and nicknamed him, “Weirdo”, “Odd tires”, and other nicknames, made fun of his disabilities. And still, I’m among the minority of students who would even bother with him, and although my making fun of him angered him, he’d still treated me as his best friend.

At the end of year cleaning, we were assigned to tidy up the storage unit away from the classroom, I’d secretly complained that he’s a no-good, useless, drag, and, I’d become, more and more lethargic as I’d cleaned, until I’d found several casing of arts project from all the classes from before—Styrofoam giraffe, and, we’d wanted to play, and I’d invited him to pick one up too, and, we’d started dueling using the giraffes, and, instantly, the heads fell off, I felt it was quite fun, and, I’d started, started, dismember the animals. Not long thereafter, the dead bodies were everywhere, the room looked awful, it was, way worse than before we came to tidy it up.

Later on, I’d gotten out to go to the bathrooms, and saw my instructor approaching, to see how we managed. I’d started panicking, wanted to save myself, and, a bad thought came, I’d run to the teacher, tattled, told her that Chih was doing damage inside the room. As the teacher entered, she’d gotten angered, and kicked Chih, slapped him across the face, screamed, “the crippled kid can make such a mess!”, then, left in anger.

I will NEVER forget the look of pain and sorrow on Chih’s face. And, although after the incident, we’d still played together, I’d felt bad about what I’d done, and, I just, never managed to tell him the truth until we’d graduated.

And now, forty years had passed by, my sense of guilt didn’t go away with the passing of the years. And, if I ever meet up with him again, I will make a formal apology to Chih, begged him to forgive me for being so young, so unkind, for my discrimination, abandoning him, for NOT treating him kindly enough.

So, this, is something AWFUL you’d done to your friend, and, you’d gone from the abused, to the abuser to this other kid, because of his physical status, he was handicapped, and, couldn’t fight back, and so, you’d, picked on him, just like the rest of your classmates picked on the two of you, and, because of it, you’d, carried this guilt inside ever since!

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