Rejection

Too Imperfect

So many layers of perfection, so many rules. We should all just follow the simplest one that will always be perfect; Death.

  Jeremy always had a problem since he was a little boy. He couldn’t form his words properly, and when he tried to speak, he would stammer and stutter. He didn’t understand why. His Papa could speak words so eloquently and wonderfully, with his deep, throaty voice, and his Mama could sing like an angel. What was wrong with him, he didn’t know. He would go to those doctors and they would try to cure his stammer, but of course, it never worked.

  Jeremy’s Mama told him that it didn’t matter. After all, he was such a sweet boy; how could anyone find something wrong with him? Jeremy smiled and shrugged when she told this to him, but he knew that there were many things people could find wrong.

  You see, when Jeremy was in preschool, he noticed how the other children made their friends. They would sidle up to the prettiest girl, or the handsomest boy, for in their eyes, they were perfect. They pursued perfection from the very beginning of their lives, and Jeremy…well, he wasn’t perfect. He was nothing like perfection. The other children shunned him. And it was all because of his stutter.

  When he was in middle school, it was the same. Every year, Jeremy hoped for a clean slate, to begin anew, to make new friends. But the moment he opened his mouth, they left. Who would want to be friends with a boy who could barely get a sentence out? Jeremy’s situation was no different from a cripple. Well, maybe a cripple would fare better, for he could speak.

  Jeremy couldn’t even speak properly.

  No one liked him.

  Since Jeremy had no friends, he had plenty of time to watch other people. He noticed, as he did in preschool, that the quest for perfection was never ending. The perfect friends would replace the imperfect ones, and once their perfection fades, they are then again, replaced.

  Jeremy knew that he was too imperfect. That was why he never had any friends. He was too blemished to be even considered. His stutter made him a blasphemy. And him being a blasphemy meant him being an outcast and rejected. He was rejected because he was too imperfect.  

  Then one day, there was a new girl in school. She was really pretty, with straight black hair that hung down her back, and piercing green eyes. She would have been perfect, if it wasn’t the fact that she had a stutter too.

  Jeremy thought that here, he would finally have a friend! There was someone who understood how he felt, and she would definitely be just as an outcast as he was because she wasn’t perfect.

  He wouldn’t be alone anymore.

  Of course, that wasn’t true.

  After a few days, Jeremy decided to go up to her to ask to be her friend. She looked a little lonely, and he knew that he could help her feel better. He had ran through the lines in his head a hundred times.

  “H-hi. I’m Je-Jerem-Jeremy. How has sch-school been?”

  Then she would smile at him and become his friend. It was so simple.

  So after lunch, Jeremy hid behind a pillar, trying to instill some non-existent courage. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose deeply. When he was younger, he found that when he breathed in a lot, he would get a little dizzy. This dizziness seemed to create another world for him; a world between reality and dreams. In that short space of time, Jeremy was in a place where he was loved.

  In preschool, when the other children wouldn’t go near him, he would hide in the toilet and breathe. With each dizzy spin of his head, he imagined himself being the center of attention, and everyone wanting to be his friend.

  With each year of middle school, when anyone shunned him, he would go to a corner and breathe in deeply, and in that short vacuum-like space, he would imagine that he was one of those popular boys that all the girls seem to squeal over.

  Today, he breathed harder and imagined himself having a friend. He imagined a happy world, with bright colours and blue skies. In that world, he was happy.

  With a final breath, he took a step out…only to take the same step back. There were girls around that girl, talking to her! How was that possible? She wasn’t perfect! She had a stutter! Jeremy skidded back, taking extremely deep breaths. Impossible. He turned back, wanting to run home.

  Impossible.

  “Hey look! That’s him!” Someone yelled.

  Jeremy winced. Not now. He tired to quicken his pace but someone caught him by the collar.

  It was cruel enough that Jeremy didn’t have any friends. It just hurt a little more that he was picked on by other boys as well. Poor Jeremy. No friends to come save him from the big bullies.  

  “Who were you looking at?” The meanest looking of them snarled in his face.

  “N-no on-one!” Jeremy stammered.

  He never could remember their names.

  “Oooh, I think he’s staring at her! I heard she has a stammer too,” One of the boys nudged the leader.

  “Who cares! She’s pretty. Unlike you,” He sneered.

  Who cares? Jeremy’s brain was whirling as fast as it could. Who cares? Wasn’t his stammer the reason why no one wanted to be his friend?

  “Look at him!” The leader spat. “He doesn’t know why no one likes him,” He said in a baby voice.

  “You said not to tell him,” Someone piped up.

  “Well,” He was still using his baby voice. “Po-poor Jeremy d-doesn’t k-kn-know why..why no-no one likes h-him?” He taunted.

  Jeremy couldn’t move. What were they talking about?

  “It isn’t because of your stammer that no one likes you,” The leader looked at him evilly. “We can understand what you say, Jeremy. But the smell of your mouth…” He glanced at the other boys and they all laughed.

  What smell?

  “Ho! He doesn’t know! Didn’t your Mama tell you how smelly you are?” He sniggered.

  Mama told me that I was a sweet boy.

  “You don’t belong here, Jeremy.” The leader pushed him away. “Alice has a stammer, but she’s still pretty. You have a stammer and you stink!” He let out a guffaw at that.

  The other boys joined in.

  Again, perfection. No one was perfect, right? That’s alright, we’ll find the more perfect ones. We may not be wonderful, so let’s push the less wonderful ones around. Jeremy stumbled back, his mind spinning. He wasn’t just a blasphemy. He had two horrible traits. He shouldn’t exist. He wasn’t perfect. He was nothing.

  He could never be perfect.

  Perfectperfectperfectperfectperfect.

  He took a step backwards and slipped on the wet granite. Behind him was a long tumble down the hill.

  Maybe he should take deeper breaths and stay in his happy place. It would be less painful, wouldn’t it?