The Life of Virgil

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The imagination is basically the first thing that goes. I used to believe in Santa Claus, Seepees, God, hope for humanity, idealism in the face of hardship, the evil next door neighborÕs garage coming to life and attacking me (hey, it was pink! Scary stuff!), and other stuff like that. So here I am in high school. Where did it all go? Meaningless activities and pretending to be a space ship captain has been replaced by meaningless violence and pretending to be high. There are always the memories, of course, only the ones left by the brainwashing of my generation (ahh, the meaningless attempt to sound ÒdeepÓ). So what do I see when I look back? Well, everything seems a whole lot scarier than it actually was. But, lets go back in time (shooshing sound effects). My first memory was me crawling towards my brother and smacking him. ThatÕs it. Smacking my brother. I canÕt remember much else about it, but itÕs probably the reason why we donÕt get along extremely well now. Maybe he remembers it too. I think my next big memories were when my parents locked me in my room with this cage like thing because I would always come in their room out of fear on the dark. I always thought some witch would eat me while I was stuck behind that gate. I would cry and cry and bawl and bawl till my parents were forced to release me from this cruel contraption. Sometimes I would be too tired to cry and resorted to just kicking the damn thing over. They learned that this was not the most efficient solution to keeping me out of their hair, so they just set up a place for me to come in and sleep so I wouldnÕt have to wake them up. After a while of that I was ready to move back to my room and stay in there. Whiles and whiles later I went to preschool. Ah, preschool. Those were good days. My mom would drop me off, and I would proceed to the cabinet to grab some baking soda and vinegar. In the sandbox, I would make volcanoes. I canÕt say it made for a pleasant playing environment for the others, but it sure was fun for me. I made one friend there, and thatÕs it. IÕm that kind of person, though. I think we both had contempt for the world in general, because we were always doing stuff to mess with each other. If we went to the circus, he would put gum in my hair. In revenge for this, he got a pill bug shoved in his mouth. Aside from stuff like that, we would constantly look for bugs and other small animals. Lizards were always a wondrous find. I had a yellow box with little compartments to put all the things we caught into. The lizards had to quickly learn Chinese contortion, for they were always a little too big for the biggest compartment. In preschool, I gained my exceptional ability to scare the hell out of people. I would go up to a kid a WHOLE YEAR older than me. He would turn and say hi, and I would reply ÒYou know IÕm going to turn you into a horrible ugly monster and your parents and everyone else will hate you.Ó. HeÕd start crying, and IÕd get sent to the step for being mean. Anyway, it would soon be circle time, and we would all sit in a circle. There was an unwritten rule that we avoid sitting next to a girl at all costs for fear of god knows what. Certainly not the stuff we avoid girls for these days. But on to something interesting, I always associate ÒIf YouÕre Happy And You Know It Clap Your HandsÓ with food, because circle time was also the time to gorge ourselves on Goldfish and two percent real fruit juice. Anyway, my fear experiments with the other children led the people who ran the preschool to suggest that I go to kindergarten young instead of waiting around for someone to have permanent psychological damage. Kindergarten was fun. You worked on letter books, played at recess, and watched to more daring kids kiss girls. We didnÕt yet know what it meant for that third grade girl who had been held back to be playing Òtouchy feelyÓ with a first grader in the bushes during lunch. We certainly learned soon enough, because in flooded the knowledge of first grade. I would sit and write my manifesto with big crayons, complete with illustrations. I didnÕt know how to draw a pipe bomb well back then, though, so things were hard. One of the more memorable experiences was me looking into the girls bathroom, so the teacher made all the boys go into the girls bathroom and the girls into the boys so we would have our curiosity satisfied. When you get to second and third grades, the big event is the science fair. It was an expression of your parentÕs ability to make it look like you did it all by yourselves. I always did try to do as much as possible, with my mom only helping for problem solving. I know what youÕre thinking, Òhe was probably making bombs or somethingÓ. Nope, I got over that by age five. Luckily, we got it outside of the house before it caused damage. But I was still booby-trapping my room. The problem I always had was making something that would push an object. Pulling was always easy. I know now that what I really needed was a track and some ball bearings. But anyway. I moved on to middle school in 4th grade. In fourth grade, everyone was afraid of the fifth graders. They were always jerks. Fourth grade was fun, though. I beat everyone (including eighth graders) at the spelling bee. That nearly got me beaten up. I got to go on to the state bee, and died on my first word. That sucked, but I got over it. So, I moved on to fifth grade, and things were getting kind of rough. I had the first of my many zealot teachers, You know, the kind who wants to change the world through iron fist influence over the children and fanatic charisma. I moved on to sixth grade, and boy did things suck. I had no friends, and was hated by all. I got so depressed that one day I just walked out on the school. I got into this private school for gifted kids called Nueva, and there the troubles began. I started 7th grade at Nueva, and it was not till much later that I discovered that Nueva was actually a cult. It was run by this guy named Steve who used terroristic threats, mind control techniques, and ÒCommunityÓ to make us do stuff. I didnÕt like this very much, so he didnÕt like me. That year was scary. I was taking a shower at camp after he had convinced me to swim in a 40 degree lake for half and hour, and he bangs on the door and walks in in only a speedo. ACHH!!!! SCARY! I nearly threw up from that alone, but things got really bad later in the year. I was defying his rule, refused to live in his community and respect him as god. He was hurting all of us. Of the 60 people at the middle school, half cut themselves and 10 were suicidal. All child abuse cases brought up there were swept under the rug. The police never had reports filed from them. Anyway, all went to hell in a handbasket, and most of the administration and teachers got fired by the board. The school itself wasnÕt evil, just the teachers in it at that time. Eighth grade there seems like 5 years ago. We had an all new staff. It was great. Things were positive and fun. The only problem was that there was still an underlying evil in the staff that didnÕt get fired. Namely one Chevy ÒI look like Janet Reno but worseÓ Martin. She hated me with a passion because she thought I testified against Steve in the investigation. She loved Steve and his cult. But anyway, she was still in power, and definitely looking for a way to get rid of me. Midway through the year, I made the fateful slip up. Freaks Macintosh Archives Home Page