I'm not sure what kind of child I was. I still don't know what kind of person I am.
I can't remember much but what I do know is that I was a very curious little girl. I was the kind who talks to myself in the mirror because nobody could handle how loquacious I was or how many ridiculous questions I could come up with in the span of 60 seconds. Maybe I was an annoying old lady in my former life.
What's strange to me is that the highlights of my memories are only the bad things I've done in the past 17 years.
Every.
Single.
One.
12 years ago in kindergarten, I remember - quite vividly if I may add - colouring a picture of a grape, sitting on a tiny little yellow chair of my kindergarten classroom right before dismissal time. I was minding my own business, concentrating on not to colour outside the thick, bold, black lines of the grapes when a little girl came up to me. She was my friend. We were close because we used to get red stars stamped on our hands together for being obedient and answering questions right. We also used to sneakily take star stickers from the teacher's desk when she wasn't looking and stuck them all over our arms. We bonded over that.
She was talking to me, asking me to play with her before we all had go home. But I didn't want to. I wanted to keep colouring, so I did and I ignored her completely. She didn't like this, so she held her hand over the top of my violet colour pencil and pushed it down. This made the tip of the colour pencil slide past the thick, bold black lines and onto.. the outside.
I was infuriated. Very infuriated.
And here, I am going to tell you something I am very proud of before I scare you away with what came after: I did not cry. Because I was never a crybaby.
Here's the worst part: I fought back. Dirty.
I shifted my rage-filled gaze at her and at my work, back and forth and it made me so much more angrier. I did what I did best: retaliate.
I grabbed the colour pencil off the table, turned it around so the pointed part is facing up and rammed it right into the little girl's neck.
She looked at me in horror before wailing at the top of her lungs. I must have been a really terrible child because what I can remember doing right after that was looking back at my paper and continued colouring the grape without much of another glance at her again. Like none of that just happened.
Her mom was the teacher, by the way. I can't remember her yelling at me but I do remember her evil little daughter rolling her eyes at me repeatedly from across the room before leaving.
Let me rephrase: I was a violent child.
