"Spiritual Recoil"
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"Spiritual Recoil"
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I've always been fat. And nerdy. But somehow I can't say I was particularly picked on.
But I always had good grades. In spite of me cutting classes a lot.
A lot.
And so I was in a cool group of kids. The nerdy videogame kids that cut classes to go to the nearest arcade in town. Or the town over.
The group attracted some misfits. Some we adopted, others we tolerated.
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There was a dude, lanky and small. He got picked on. And because he got picked on a bit at school, and because his cousin was a tall right true Amazon warrior of a girl. We tolerated him.
If he was with us he got picked on way less. In exchange the cousin would tolerate us being near her. Win win, right?
Back then, I used to be really shy and quiet. So people just tend to talk to me. Wait, scratch that, people always seem to want to tell me stuff. To talk to me. Big ears, me.
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So this unassuming kid. So lanky I would have been afraid to even push him for fear of making his head crack on the pavement... He told me a weird story.
I was sneaking out of the high school and to do that you would kinda see the river which was close by. And he tagged along, uninvited. And when he saw the river he told me a story.
Typical juvenile, "oh I cut class all the time, I don't fear any teacher." type of stuff. And I was like yeah sure buddy, whatever you say.
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"One time I was out near the river, just like this one, just walking around. Fuck Sunday school."
At this my ears perked up, because I've been hating on religion since I was a child.
And he kept on, "While near the river I saw a cat."
"I killed it."
And I was, "what the fuck man, what's wrong with you?"
"I didn't mean to do it! I threw a rock at it and I hit it by mistake. I thought I had killed it. And I panicked."
" So I got a plastic bag..."
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"And I put the cat in the bag, and I walked to somewhere where the shore was over the river and I threw the bag away with all my strength into the river."
"But I think all the force woke the cat up I hadn't really killed it. And the bag fell in the river and the cat was trying to claw it's way out of it."
"But it couldnt... I didn't know I hadn't killed it. But then I guess it drowned."
I was just a kid then, but the detachment in his voice...
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And so, I started to hang out with the group less and less. And they noticed.
And when they asked me I said, I didn't want to hang out with that guy. I didn't say why. But eventually the dude was pushed out of the group.
Sometimes I encountered him at school. And the vibe was so off.
I never was one to start fights or nothing. But when I saw the guy my hands instinctively curled into fists.
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So many years passed. And this dude, that maybe had killed a cat, or maybe was trying to impress me for some weird reason and in the worst way possible, fell out of my mind.
I finished high school, went to uni, broke my leg, got surgery, rehab, went back to uni, finished it, got married, got a nice job, bought a house, had a kid, divorced...
And suddenly, in a supermarket, I just happened to stop by, I saw the dude again...
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To say he was... I don't want to be unkind... I'll just say that drugs seemed to have sapped his humanity. He was a sorry sight.
I wasn't just taken aback, I was... My recoil was not just physical but spiritual as well...
I had talked to this guy. This guy was, however briefly, my friend!
And here he was. Not dead. But even worse.
If he recognized me he feigned not to. But I wouldn't be surprised if his mind was so gone he really didn't know who I was...
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And I may have said this before... I was a different person back then. And i am ashamed to say that I didn't offer him any help. And I think, I'm almost sure that I didn't give him any money either.
Now looking back I wish I had done something besides recoil.
I have wondered many times what became of him. But it's not a question that I really want to have answered. I can guess.
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But I have been thinking, about him telling me, confessing that he killed a cat. But not outright telling me, or even acknowledging to himself of what he did.
It was some sort of, "I didn't meant to", "I panicked", "it just happened"
It's like he did things, he knows he did things, but the consequences were not really tied to his actions somehow.
It reminds me, sorta, of how the US as a country behaves. It is weird.
Stuff happens, but no one is responsible. No one _meant_ it.
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And everyone is sorry. Maybe.
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Wow, a sad story, thanks for sharing it with us
