A soul

He watched as the world went by. Sitting on that old rusted, bench, watching the children jumping and running around in the playground. He then looked up at the sky and wondered, "Why me?" Tears that had been pooling in his eyes finally rolled down his cheeks. He didn't even bother to wipe them off, he was tired of hiding them, he was tired of being afraid.

He could hear them taunting him and throwing insults at him. He never knew primary school kids could be so mean. He was pulled back to the little him, chubby and bespectacled. He remembered the other kids sneering at him, pretending to smile at him, at best. He struggled to shut them out, to stop their taunting. They wouldn't stop and so he found both his hands flying to his ears. He was sick and tired of it and so he changed himself. He lost all the weight and got contacts.

Then, just as quickly, he was pulled back to the beginning of secondary school. Everything got relatively better and he started making friends. But there was something not right and he could feel it in his guts. They were always smiling way to elastically, and they were always there at the worst of times and not to mention, the homework. He chuckled a wet chuckle as he sat there on the bench. He should have known when they first handed him their home works and smiled all too sweetly at him and saying thank you in the shortest and almost emotionless possible way.

He was happy for a moment, doing their homework, if it meant he had "friends". He was okay with the long nights, sitting in his room finishing the bunch of home works. But then, it all got too unbearable. He started losing sleep and his grades started to drop. His "friends" were pushing him and pushing him until the brink of exhaustion. So he confronted them. He told them that it was too much and maybe he could just help them instead of doing it for them. They scoffed at him and said, "What kind of a friend are you?" They left and never offered him a second glance.

That's how he became the freak, the smart,geeky kid, the ugly one and sometimes, even the stupid kid, which is contradicting to being called the smart, geeky kid. He held his head down, walking through the corridors. He knew he couldn't stop them but he tried to drown them out as best he could. Although they were just murmurs and whispers, he could feel them pointing, he could sense them staring. He would hide in the lavatory, just to get away from it all. It got to a point where he started cutting himself. He never really understood why people did until he experienced it for the first time. The feeling that he got was overwhelming. It was intoxicating. He got so addicted that he did it up to five times a week.

His parents, concerned, took him to a therapist. He scoffed at the memory. It was just like talking to a robot. The psychiatrist was just trying to understand him instead of actually trying to help him. He went just because his parents wanted him to. He knew they were afraid for him but he couldn't help feel resentment. He hated the fact that they didn't know about it earlier. He hated the fact that they didn't notice. He hated the fact that he didn't tell them sooner.

The vision of secondary school became blurred and replacing it was the image of him entering sixth form college. It was somewhere he thought he could start fresh. He did at first. He was so busy with assignments and class that he didn't have time to think about anything else. And thankfully enough, he had kicked the habit of cutting himself.

The second semester rolled around and they had to start thinking about the kind of jobs they wanted to do. He remembered experimenting with a lot of stuff. He was sitting in his room one day and the notepad and pencil on his bed caught his attention. "That's right." He had thought. He grabbed the notepad and flipped through the pages that were filled with lines and lines of poetry. "This is what I want to be." He gritted his teeth as he thought to the genuine smile he had on his face. He felt disgusted with himself.

He optimistically and naively went and told everyone that he wanted to be a poet. The other sixth formers stared at him like he was some kind of lunatic. They laughed awkwardly and slowly but surely distanced themselves from him. Now, whenever he would walk up to a group, they would disperse like he's some sort of dangerous plague. He smiled but they never returned it and he called out to them but they never answered. They talked about the crazy kid who thinks he can make a living out of being a poet and he once again drowned them out, not all of them but, most of them. Even the teachers were saying that it was impossible.

Tears left a wet trail down his cheeks as he was sucked back to the present. He covered his face with his hands and muffled the wet sobs. He sniffled and looked up, his eyes red from the tears and not quite dry. He patted the lump that was showing through his jeans pocket. A bottle filled with pills was stashed in there. He smile at the thought that it will all be over soon.

"Hello?" He jerked his head towards that angelic, sing-song voice. Next to him stood a girl, about six years old. She had her hair up in a ponytail and she looked intently at him. "Hello." He answered weakly. "Why were you crying?" The little girl asked innocently. He sniffled and smiled at her. "I'm just upset with my friends, that's all." He answered. He couldn't tell a six year-old girl that he was thinking of suicide. "Why?" The girl asked again, cocking her head to the side. "They just said some things that made me upset that's all. And I don't think we're friends anymore." He didn't know why he was saying all of that to a little girl. The little girl stepped closer to him and placed a fragile little hand on his arm. "That's alright." She said reassuringly. "I'll be your friend." She beamed at him showing two missing teeth at the very front. It made him choke up. All of a sudden the resolve and the thought of suicide started to fleetingly escape his mind. He didn't expect someone so little and so innocent could have such a profound and empowering effect on him.

He knows that everything is not okay and he doesn't really know when it will but something about the little girl's smile reminded him that no matter how cruel the people he knows are, there are some out there, somewhere, who are ready to accept him for who he was. And so he smiled down at the girl and said, "Thank you." The little girl giggled delightfully. "You're welcome." Then suddenly, as if remembering something, the girl said, "I have to go. My mum is calling for me." He looked up to see a woman waving to the little girl, calling out, "Angela!" Angela let go of his arms and skipped away, waving as she did. He returned her wave all the way until she reached her mother.

He sighed a sigh of relief, as if all the burden had been taken off his shoulders. He smiled a weak smile, but a smile none the less, thinking that for once, maybe things were going to be okay, but he had to be strong. He never saw the little girl again, but she remained to him a reminder that not all are bad and some have the special ability to touch other people's lives, it's just that they don't know it yet.