Children can be very cruel. I discovered this at a very early age. You see this sort of thing all the time on those television talk shows like Montel and Jenny Jones; A little girl, perhaps a bit chubby, but beautiful nonetheless, walks on stage and plops herself in a large chair. A blip appears on the screen, “Chelsea…bullied by classmates who call her ‘Miss Piggy’ and ‘Pillsbury Dough Girl’.” The talk show host cascades down the steps entering the audience as she begins to interview the poor young girl. Obviously upset, the child replies to the host as tears begin to roll down her soft pink cheeks. All of a sudden, booing and shouting overcome the audience whilst a few little bullies thump onto the stage to their seats, but only after they have managed to heave their chairs at least a mile away from their victim. The sweet and innocent child begins to bawl her eyes out once more, this time her tears pour like a heavy rain shower onto her new pink dress. The viewers at home are disgusted with the attitudes displayed by the little thugs harassing the little girl. She seems terribly upset, devastated to say the least. But she’ll be okay soon. She’ll grow up to become a successful businesswoman or a supermodel. She’ll never let those ignorant little jerks get in her way, right? This is not the case all of the time.
Looking back now, I see this could have been avoided. There could have been alternatives. Since I can remember, I have been constantly bullied and picked on because I was overweight. Walking down the halls at elementary school, spit balls and dirt were constantly being hurled at me. Names were screamed across an unattended classroom in my direction. Sure, it would have been easy to ignore this after awhile, had I had someone to talk to. But I had not a friend in the world. This harassment would continue until tonight even. I was much too ashamed to report it to someone who could help me. I was unable to reveal this secret I had been keeping since a young age. I didn’t want anyone new to know about what had happened in the past. I didn’t want them to know how bad it was. But I guess they’d clue in soon.
I can’t rid myself of the fact that he’s been doing this to me for years. Joey, a kid in my Grade 11 classes whom I’ve been a classmate with since Grade 6, pushed me today. This wasn’t a normal push. For years he’s been the one throwing the spit balls and dirt at me. For years he’s been the one who’s shouted out these horrible names at me from across an unsupervised classroom. He’s the one who’s sole purpose in life seemed to be recruiting my peers to hate me and follow in his sunken footsteps. Today he pushed me. Today he called me ‘Miss Piggy” and spit in my face again. He pushed me over the edge of bearable torture. Today he pushed me.
My name is I Chelsea, I am 16 years old, and today I killed myself. Children can be very cruel.
A candle flickers gently to my left like a sun that’s rosy hues are kindly fading into the horizon. As I sit here all alone the world seems as if it were perfectly still—no clamour, no bombs, no nothing—just the slight hum of my computer and the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard. I’m waiting for someone just to wake me up. I feel as though I’m living a dream so insane, and I can’t yet determine if it’s the glimmer of the flame that keeps me entranced, or the mere fact that I’m oblivious to the world around me just now. The light of the candle begins to skip gallantly around the room as if it were dancing to the song of its life. I am taken by its shadows—witches summoning up spirits around an illuminating fire in the middle of the dark woods. They continue to prance around in circles and suddenly stop. All radiance has ceased. The flame has burned out and life is but a dream.
