Unforgettable (Part 1)

INAUGURATIONS 1. Clair

'You're such an incompetent fool!'

'Go kill yourself!'

'I'm gonna assault you!'

'Ha! I wanna see your face!'

'I'm coming for you!'

'Are you crying yet?'

'Say your prayers!'

'Commit suicide! It will make death a lot less painful!'

'Kiss your mummy goodbye!'

My eyes pour over the derogatory, threatening, offensive statements on my Facebook page. Who in their right mind would send me these messages? Should I tell my parents or not? I don't know. If I did tell my parents, I would hear the same thing coming out of their mouths, which would be 'You're a smart girl, get yourself out,' or, ' You didn't come first last year pointlessly'. I think back to when I was five and was playing with my next door neighbour Michael, Mike for short. We were happily lying on the grass, telling one another stories.

"I remember," Mike begun. " When I walked into my sister Clarence's room, and she was with her friend who was a boy."

(At that point, we were too young to understand terms like 'boyfriend', 'girlfriend', 'dating', 'putting on a good impression')

"Since I was only three and I wasn't properly toilet trained, I peed in Clarence's room on her carpet. She got really angry at me and called me these words I didn't understand, like 'moron' and 'idiot.' Then I never saw her with her friend that was a boy ever again."

I laughed until I was crying. The tears were rolling down my cheeks and pouring out of my eyes. Michael seemed a little embarrassed, but he was laughing too. Without thinking, I decided to come up with a dare. At that time, I had heard of a term that I didn't know the meaning of, but it sounded intelligent so I was desperate to use it.

I turned to Michael. "Dare me to go into your sister's room and call her a person with severe mental retardation?"

Michael burst out laughing and he may have even wet his pants, but I didn't know for sure.

"Yes! Yes!" he cried, and continued laughing.

I stood up and walked inside his house. Michael was silently following while stifling giggles. I crept into Clarence's, Mike excitedly waiting outside and waiting to hear what I was about to say. I stealthily sneaked behind Clarence, who was in front of the computer, typing a document. I stood behind Clarence for a few seconds, before I could not contain myself.

"YOU HAVE SEVERE METAL RETARDATION!!" I blurted out.

I could hear giggling from the hallway, which was becoming more quiet every second. At that time, it didn't occur to me that Mike was running away to avoid his sister from beating him to a pulp. Meanwhile, I remained standing in the middle of Clarence's bedroom in hysterics. All I remember is Clarence turning around and beating me up until I was black, blue, purple and bleeding. Like any other child does, I ran home to my parents and told them my twisted version of the episode. As usual, my parents went across the road to Michael's house and asked what happened. However, when they heard Clarence's story, they lost faith in my story and only said to me: " It's your problem, go and sort it out. You caused the problem."

To this day, I always think 'Yeah, that's right. Let an innocent five year old child work out the universe for herself with no help.'

A few more episodes similar to this one, my parents lost all their faith in me. Well, that's at least what it feels like.

I snap out of my memory and continue to read the messages on the computer screen. The messages are from two people and one of the people attends my school. I shiver as I think of all the bullying I will have to experience tomorrow. I wonder if I should even attend school tomorrow, but I must because I have an assessment worth 200 marks due tomorrow, therefore, I have no choice but to go to school. They other guy who is bullying me is anonymous, but I am quite concerned because his messages seem as if they will turn to a reality. I open a message sent by the unknown offender, which reads the following:

'I swear Clair, that I will take you away from your family forever, on the 24th March. It is tomorrow, so say your prayers and your goodbyes tonight.'

I screenshot this message and send it to my beloved friend Josephine, whom I have known since I was three. I send the screenshot to her via iMessage and delete the message from my Facebook account. I don't know what I've done for these messages to be targeted at me. All these messages have been sent within one weekend, and all I can think of what I've posted is a picture of me with Josephine at the beach and I don't understand how that picture could lead to threatening. Who knows? Maybe that picture has nothing to do with the cause of these messages. I glance at my watch, it is now one fifteen in the early morning. I have been trying to ward of my attackers for around five hours now, and it has only made things worse. I lay on my bed, not bothering to have a shower and hope that I will be lying in this exact position twenty four hours from now. What more could I wish for?