Weirdo

“Weirdo”

They thought he hadn’t heard it, but he did, he always did. The thinly veiled comments had stopped and it was now full-fledged vehemence that he heard and what he saw was uncontained gleeful faces saying it.

He walked on. He had always walked on.

He sat at his desk and plugged in his earplugs to the dusty CPU and fired up VK. He knew the rest of the people in his bay all shared music through it, listened to the same songs, breaking out in peals of laughter at the same time and from his peripheral vision he could see heads bobbing out of the symmetrical cubicles, all at the same time, with the same gay looks of mirth on all their faces, looking at each other and glowing with the joy of their shared camaraderie. All of theirs except his, from his corner cubicle, from where he had showed one of them how to use VK. Of course they promptly used it to make him feel even more excluded. But he didn’t really mind.

When he had sat with the rest of the kids at movie time every week, oldest among the lot, he was as curious as the rest of them, childlike, always waiting to see what came next.

When he was told he would be tutoring with the nice lady who was going to carve out time and money because he had “potential”, and he nodded, he wanted to see what came next.

When he was told there weren’t enough funds for him to go to college, because the rest of the kids at the home needed to go to school, he said okay, waiting to see what was next. He helped clean, sew, mop, cook at the home in return for continuing to live there even though he was past the age and had to move on. The kids liked his unobtrusive presence and let him pick the movies, but only after he had checked through all of their homework.

When the nice lady’s daughter came by a year later and said the nice lady was no more, with tears in her eyes, and left him with an envelope full of money, he looked up at the teary eyed woman and before he could react she was gone. My mother saw potential in you, she had said, she had great hopes that you would make it in engineering, she said.

At college, he sat through one class after the other, always waiting to hear what was next. In the company of his long silences, he absorbed every word, always waiting to see what was next. When the men in suits took over the entire college for a day and walked around looking important, and he was asked to interview, he found himself wondering what was next.

He heard whispers from the teachers about the sadness, the potential, and the luck that was bestowed upon this orphan boy. He heard about diversity in multinational corporations. He heard how his life would change.

And it did.

He began to notice things he hadn't before. He noticed that mismatched socks were gross. That worn out Converse sneakers that were drawn on with doodles were disgusting. That tiny hole in his shirt he hadn’t noticed made him a hobo. The lack of a girlfriend meant he was gay. Not liking pizza made him a loser . That the word sick didn’t mean someone was ill. Slay didn’t mean there was violence involved. That calling somebody a bitch with a smile meant they were friends. That his inability to find every little thing awesome, amazing, mind blowing meant he didn’t get it.

He felt bewildered. He was unsure now if he wanted to see what came next.

He didn’t agree, he didn’t understand. He did not think he was the child of tragedy he was made out to be. He didn’t know how to be dramatic at every new song and baby goat and every new internet sensation. He didn’t feel like he was a hobo, or a prude, or gay. 

He knew what was amazing and it was not a cat video.

And now, as he sat looking at the screen with lines and lines of code, he heard it again. In between all the laughter, a head nod and a pointed finger in his direction, with a smile that tried to look friendly but the lips saying,

“Fucking weirdo”.

They never knew that sometimes songs end and you can hear these hateful words through the ear buds.

He pulled open his drafts on email and sent in his resignation letter.

This time, he would know what was coming next.