Journal of a Five Year Old

9 June 3:00PM

I woke up from a nightmare just now. In the nightmare, I saw a boy who told me that he was Bobby.

Bobby had black hair that hanged around his face in a messy way. It looked like he hadn't brushed his hair in years. His dark brown eyes had black bags underneath, a sign that he hadn't had any sleep for a while. He stood with great posture, arms crossed. He wore a baggy pair of blue jeans and a plain red t-shirt. His shoes were sketchers, but there was something different. They were an odd shade of gray that I have never seen before.

He smirked at me when he saw me. His face scares me. I haven't seen him until now. All I heard before was his voice in my head. I had imagined him as a happy 6 year old, but he was a depressed 12 year old!

Scary.

But he always warned me about everything, so I shouldn't judge him on how he looks.

Still, I asked him why he looked like that. Hey, I was five. I couldn't help it.

He told me a story that made me not want to go to school even more. He told me that he looked the way he did because of school.

His story went like this:

Bobby was my age, just starting out kindergarten. Just like every other kid, he had no idea what was coming for him. (Hahahaha, what was COMING for him. Sorry) He got on the school bus and sat down next to his friend, who was just as excited for the first day of school as Bobby was.

They got to school 25 minutes later. It looked okay from the outside. Flowers aligning the sidewalk, trees blowing peacefully through the breeze. There was even a fountain of water! (Yandere simulator, anyone?) the building itself was clean and looked like an organized place.

All the kids rushed out of the bus and was guided inside by the teachers. It all looked okay until they got to the gym for an assembly. As six year olds, they didn't notice how bad the place looked.

The principal greeted them and told them how school would work. They would have to write papers everyday and not make a sound in class unless called on. If they broke the rules, they could get what was known as a detention.

That's when Bobby made the mistake. He cried out that he wanted to go home and yelled at the teachers. He received a detention, which would take place after school.

The day was hard on all of the kids. The teachers didn't like anyone except for one kid. That kid always got the others in trouble. It was like he was working for the teachers.

At the end of the day, Bobby, along with a few other kids, went to detention. The teacher in the room sneered at the kids before making them do hard work and hitting them multiple times. They were all sobbing by the time that they left to deal with the scoldings of their parents.

The teachers ended up hating Bobby, giving him detention after detention, always getting abused. All of the detentions led to disappointment from his parents.

Then one day, Bobby had enough. He was 12 years old when he decided that he couldn't deal with it anymore. So he played with some rope by a tree.

When Bobby finished his story, I asked him how long ago that happened.

It was 23 years ago.

I asked him how he was still 12, and he told me that he couldn't age. When he said this, his face started to look weird. His skin started to decay, his eyes sulk, his hair grow longer, and his teeth turn yellow, then fall out.

That's when I woke up.

I thought about that dream all day, thinking about how grateful I was of Bobby for warning me about school.