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I am not their friend.
They don’t surround me like one of the popular kids.
I sit here, in my own tiny corner, waiting for the words to stop, and for the gravity of the situation to return to its rightful place beneath my weight.
Forty days of indescribable nonsense, where my peers cannot understand my intellectual needs. They don’t understand the words that I speak, and why I speak them. I told them, “We can pass the existential singularity if we tried harder!” but these mindless drones don’t understand a word.
I’m not normal, but it goes unnoticed by my teachers. I don’t let them see it. If they did, who knows what they might do to a smart being like myself. Only Hermann—he told me not to call him that, but I do it anyway—knows about my smartness. He knows of my potential, and so he has become a close friend of mine. He tells me that I shouldn’t hang out with him when the teachers are around, as to not arouse any suspicions. Though I don’t think the teachers would mind, though; two freaks of a feather hang out together.
Even now, though, as I’m here, in my natural habitat, the corner, it still bothers me that I’m considered “just another kid”. I hear what the teachers say often, though they don’t know that yet. So, I’m supposed to be a normal person? Am I stereotyped that easily?
Hermann realized it on day five, that I am an individual. Even though he may only be eight, and I seven (I started school early), he’s still the smartest guy I’ve met. We’ve both skipped a grade of school. Yet we are treated as average individuals.
Day twelve. I have been classified as a nerd. What is a nerd, anyway? Just because I know more than them doesn’t mean they have to call me a nerd. It’s probably because they fear me. I could twist their little brains around the concepts of alien possibilities. I wonder how I even managed to get stuck here. I could just move on up in grades quickly, but that would get their attention too quickly. And then the adults would label me as a freak.
And I would lose Hermann.
Day seventeen. I’m back in my corner again. The teacher told me it would be best if I settled down. It’s where I belong. It’s disappointing, almost. My teacher acts so much like Hermann—resenting my behavior and disrespect for the cold, hard facts of life in favor of speculation. But what is life without queries and pondering? Hermann doesn’t push my theories away with the uncaring nature that my teacher has. He’s nice to me.
Day twenty. I’m very tired today. I accidentally fell backwards in my chair, and hit my head on the desk. At least, that’s what the adults told me what happened. I could have sworn that I felt something rock me backward, not me doing it. But who better to believe than the people we are to respect?
I also was taken to the eye doctors today by my mom. They’ve given me glasses, and they said that’ll cure the eye aches that I’ve been getting for the past month.
Day twenty-three. Hermann’s been avoiding me for the past three days. I’m worried that he might not like my new glasses. I think they’re okay, but they keep sliding off of my nose. A dark-skinned kid said that I have a fat head today, but that wouldn’t make any sense if they were falling off of my face, right?
Day twenty-five. Was it something I said?
Day thirty. Hermann, please stop looking at your papers and look at me. I’m starting to think that I’m normal again, and that being normal has lost your interest.
Day thirty-eight. I nearly tripped Hermann out of an instinctive urge when he was walking past my desk today. I decided against it because he might get hurt, and I don’t want to hurt my friend. I think he’s my friend?
Day forty. Hermann talked to me again, and it nearly hurt my chest when he suddenly spoke up at recess. He told me that it wasn’t an accident when I fell back in my chair, but that it was one of the teacher’s daughters that had done it. It made sense that the teacher would lie, but if I told my mom, she would cause trouble at school.
Though that is not what had my interest. I asked him if he was avoiding me, and he said, “No.” I asked if he liked my glasses, and he didn’t speak for a while before saying, “Yes.” It’s a shame he doesn’t wear glasses, too. I think he’d look good in them.
Hermann, don’t leave me again. The world is not safe enough for you to go out there alone.
Day forty-one. I’ve managed to pass day forty. Day forty was the point I thought one of the two would collapse: me, or the society that’s built itself around me. By some miracle, I’m still here! I haven’t been beaten up by my ‘peers’ yet, though I think they get annoyed by me answering the teacher’s questions. But it’s an achievement that has satisfied my need for…something.
I don’t know what to call it, since I haven’t read up on the new psychology textbooks that my mother gave me a few days ago. I’m so excited to start, and I’m thinking about sharing them with Hermann. Maybe he’ll learn to accept me more. Though I’m OK with the way he treats me now. It’s much better than the other kids.
I don’t think I would have made it if Hermann hadn’t confronted me yesterday. I was so scared that he might have fallen into the trap that society had laid for him, and thought too that I was a normal person. But I’m not normal. Not when he’s around.
Day forty-three. I held Hermann’s hand today. It was awkward for him, that’s what he said, but I think he was just nervous about me holding his hand. After all, all of the girls held hands with guys, and never guys with guys. Just because we’re boys doesn’t mean we can’t hold hands. It won’t catch the teacher’s attention if we’re careful.
Day forty-five. I’m stuck in a bad place, underneath the tree. There’re those kids around me again, talking with big words that they don’t understand. Words that they got from me. While I’m happy to have inspired them to use different words, it scares me that they’re trying to use them to hurt me. They don’t know what those words mean, and how they’re using them. “You hippocampus!” if only they knew that it was a word for the area that’s used for remembering things. If I am a hippocampus, I truly must be smarter than them, for I know more.
Day forty-six. Hermann said that knowing more does not mean that I am smarter than them. When I try to argue about it, he just tells me to be quiet. I am quiet, for a minute, but I want to ask him what part of the brain he thought he was. I didn’t want to make him angry, though, so I didn’t.
Day forty-seven. I wish I’d asked him what part of the brain he was. I want to know so much.
Day forty-eight. My back is turned toward the class, in my corner of thoughts. It’s better I don’t see their faces, or they may call me a ‘nerd’ again. If I turn towards them, I may end up slipping and becoming one of them, giving in to their need for conformity.
“They still don’t know I’m a snowflake. I think that’s so sad. Don’t you, Hermann?”
“Don’t call me that,” is always his response.
Day forty-eight addendum: Incidentally, my prescription is nearly running out.