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I look at Malcolm and I am filled with loathing.
More so than when I am around the idiotic plebeians I am forced to turn into something workable in society, he reminds me of how I have fallen.
The golden boy. The person I used to be.
Ah how mighty and majestic I was back then. The King. And everyone knew it. How they hated me.
Straight A’s, in everything. The highest in all my papers, projects, works. The awards I gained for my brilliance.
The administration
Oh how I wish I didn’t gloat. The boy makes it too easy.
And now I am forced to witness it again, only it’s not me. It’s Malcolm.
Malcolm who was won a certificate for excellence in science by the state from the mayor himself. So proud was our principal that he made the day a free day for all the students, after a special individual ceremony for Malcolm, the golden boy.
I suppose I should be proud. I am his teacher. And I could of course get the credit for pushing him so hard. After all, if not for me, the boy would be hiding his true potential, what with the lack of ambition he had. Honestly, how ungrateful he is.
How underappreciated I am! To not even gain an ounce of credit. To stand by and watch a child more brilliant than I am excel, being reminded of how little I am. How I am old and worn, and no longer useful or brilliant.
You’d think as his teacher, I’d be proud. I have to say there’s something nostalgic I feel when it comes to that boy, bittersweet, but mostly it’s pain...in… my heart. Pain… because those days are gone. The golden years. When I was King, and now I am no longer. A reminder of these days gone, and now after the years of hope and feelings of unlimited potential, I am here where it all started, a broken man. Broke and divorced. Net worth once 14 million and now $137.
Oh how I have fallen.
All those years studying, working so hard to maintain the highest GPA, to become the smartest and the best.
Only to face the reality I have always truly know.
That I am not...smart.
Not as smart as I like to show people I am.
This is why I hate the Krelboynes. Why I am hard on them. So that they will see, will be prepared of the reality.
So they won’t fall like me.
But Malcolm is different. Has always been different.
At first, I saw him as one of my only pupil who will succeed, and potentially groom. But he proved to be rebellious, which I was not wholly against at first. It was amusing to see how he tried to convince the Lemmings to fall of the cliff with him. To even think that falling off the cliff was the solution. Ha!
It somewhat reminded me of me.
Of when I actually thought quitting a think tank as prestigious as The Brookings Institution, to start my own dot com would actually work out. That I could beat the system.
I won’t lie when I say there are times Malcolm reminds me of me that he brings some feelings of affection I haven’t felt for a while.
Not since my ex-wife. Or my daughter.
Malcolm reminds me of me and I both feel hatred, self-loathing, and yet affectionate nostalgia.
Because how rebellious I once was! I arrogant! I thought I could actually make it on my own! Could actually beat the system!
Well now...I am the system.
And I’ll admit… despite my fall from grace, despite working in this low waged job, it pleases me much this realization.
That I am the system.
That I could ruin all these boys and girls lives if they don’t play to my tune.
It pleases me a lot.
And for the most part it works… until it doesn’t.
Until Malcolm finally proved to me… that he is smarter than I am.
That he might not be able to beat the system…
But he could break it.
He could break it because underneath the veneer of a very smart though lazy boy is actually a true genius with a great deal of potential untouched, and perhaps forever untouched.
For despite his intelligence, the infuriating thing about Malcolm is that he literally doesn’t care about how smart he is.
He does not care about being the smartest and reaching his greatest potential.
He doesn’t not want it.
And that’s what I hate about him. How could someone born of such gifts be so unappreciative!!!
This is why I wanted to focus so much on Barton. After all, at my feet was a boy with the greatest genius perhaps ever known and I can help reach his potential which Malcolm refuses to reach. But in the end, nay it was not to be.
So now I only have Malcolm. The boy who does not care and does not want to be morphed by others guidance.
The arrogant whining ungrateful ingrate.
The boy that sometimes reminds me of me.