When I was young, about 14, I didn’t have much to smile about. I was a small, insignificant boy, mediocre in school, no good at sports. I didn’t lead a very happy life at home either, since my parents had gotten a divorce when I was 7 years old. I constantly travelled from parent to parent, my dad on the weekend and my mum during the week. All of my hours outside of school I watched TV or movies, and all my free time at school was spent hiding in the toilet cubicle. Hiding from the bullies. The bullies twho punched me daily, who pushed my head into the toilet, who stole my money for the bus. All schools had them, but at this school they were particularly mean. All the kids who weren’t as big as them, who weren’t as fast as them, who weren’t as cool as them; they were the kids who got bullied. I was the main target of their bullying, being the smallest and youngest kid in Year 9. The teachers didn’t care; they turned a blind eye to what was happening before them in the school, because, secretly, they were scared of the bullies as well. One of the gang had been sent to Juvenile Detention because he had stabbed a kid who fought back against him, and the rest of them were just as ruthless. I didn’t appreciate my life very much back then.
As school went on, the bullying continued. It was about a year later when my grandpa, the only person that I had been close to, suddenly died of a heart attack. I didn’t speak to anybody for a month after that, and the bullying only increased, making me feel even worse. I got multiple detentions for not doing my work in class, just staring absently out of the window, wishing for a better life. Or no life at all. My dad and I had an argument, and I got so mad that I ran out of the house and walked 10 kilometres to my mum’s house. Just before I got there, I suddenly felt my chest tightening up, and I couldn’t breathe. I collapsed and only remember a brief mirage of images; an ambulance turning up, on the way to the hospital, being examined by a doctor; it was all a blur. When I finally came to, I was told that I had suffered an extreme asthma attack, and that I was lucky to be alive. I wondered about that last statement.
When I went back to school, you think that I’d get sympathy, right? Wrong. Now I was an asthmatic as well as a short kid who was behind in class, terrible at sports and didn’t have a social life. I wasn’t doing too well in any of my subjects at school, especially not Maths and English, my two main subjects. I decided to drop out at the end of the year, since I was getting nowhere. The events of my childhood may not seem that harsh to you, but all of these added together all at once filled me with hate for the world. And still, since that day that my parents had divorced, I had never smiled.
At the end of Year 10 I had a massive argument with my mother over leaving school and went to live with my dad. I never spoke to my mum again. I got a job working at a fast food joint down the road. It didn’t pay too much, but it got me what I needed. I worked long shifts since I didn’t have anything else to do, and, after about six months, being promoted to Store Manager, which paid quite well. By this time I was only 17, but I worked hard. The only thing that I never did at that joint was work the counters, because the first time I did, there were several complaints about the “bloke who never smiled”. I led an isolated life, never going out to a club or a movie. I frequently went to the video store and rented movies, and in my spare time I watched these. They took my mind off things, but never made me happy. I tried, believe me. I watched every single comedy film there ever was. But I didn’t find them amusing; they just reminded me of past incidents in my life; the bullying, the asthma attack, the argument with my mum; everything that I watched reminded me of something bad that had happened to me. So I stopped watching the comedies and started with the horrors instead. I watched the all of the scariest, freakiest and grossest films and they haunted me. That was a good and bad thing, good because it took my mind away from my past experiences and bad because it provided me with sleepless nights. One night, on the night of my 18th birthday, I decided to do something different; I decided out, to a bar near my old school. I walked through the door into the bar and everyone seemed to stop and stare at me. Obviously weren’t used to newcomers. I sauntered up to the counter and ordered a drink. It got delivered to me and I gulped it down. I was drowning my sorrows in this magical liquid. I ordered another, then another. Everything started to seem distorted around me, faces twisting and contorting, tables looking not quite as steady as before. I decided that I’d had enough alcohol, and I started to head home .
I walked home at a brisk pace, because I hadn’t realised how late it was. I came to a familiar area, and realised that I was walking along the street that my old school was on. I knew a shortcut through the school to home, so I jumped the fence and walked on. When I was coming to the oval I was suddenly tackled from behind and slammed into the ground. I tried to get up but my face was shoved into the dirt once again. When I finally got up I found a gang of boys around my age who were much bigger than me. Even in the darkness I could recognise them. My childhood bullies. They were all standing around me, some smoking cigarettes, and one holding a glinting knife. “Oh, look who it is!” one of the shouted. “It’s the boy who never smiles!” “Well,” the boy holding the knife said menacingly. “Let’s change all that.”
When I awoke I felt searing pain in my face. I could remember little of those past few hours, only blinding pain and the occasional image. I slowly remembered the gang grabbing me and holding me down while the guy with the knife put the extremely sharp blade into my mouth and then carved into my face a permanent smile. I ran home with my hands covering my face, whimpering. As soon as I got home I ran inside and stomped as loud as I could to wake my dad up. I had previously decided against talking, because it would hurt my mouth too much. He came sprinting down the stairs and when I uncovered my face, he nearly passed out. I must have been a real sight. He immediately ran to the phone and called for an ambulance. It came screeching to our door about five minutes later, and just before they burst through the door, I looked at a mirror. My face was covered in blood, my hair glued to my scalp, my whole face disfigured. I passed out.
I came to in a hospital in a bed with doctors surrounding me. They seemed relieved that I had awoken, because they had been seriously worried for me. I noticed a pen and a piece of paper next to the bed and I grabbed them and wrote in scrawling letters “How long have I been in here?” The doctor standing immediately in front of me responded. “Three days,” he said. I was shocked. The doctors then went on to explain to me that my body had shut down to fight the infections and to heal itself. It had needed a long time to do that, but eventually my immune system had fought it all out. I stayed in that hospital for two months, until the scars had sealed up and I could speak again. But this time, all these weeks lying in bed, had driven me crazy.
As soon as I got out I walked into a gun shop and bought a revolver. That night I walked up to my old school and there they were; the group of bullies that had troubled me for so many years of my life. Not anymore. I walked up to them and shot the one who had used the knife on me in the head. I raised my head to the sky and laughed. The others turned away and started to run, but I shot them as well. One by one, the bodies collapsed to the ground. And I laughed and laughed and laughed. It felt so good getting it all out.
And, since that joyous, amazing day, I’ve never stopped smiling.
