Dead

As I stared at the 2 digits on my economics test paper, a very, very cold, human chill ran down my spine. My last trump card has been played. My credibility is in tatters. The elitist, hubristic boy is nothing more than a bad joke. For all the time, he looked down on who he thought were lesser beings, for all the time that he turned his nose up at people with that holier-than-thou attitude, for all the time that he smirked thinking that he knew what he did not know, it just adds mark after mark to his name in the hall of shame. And as he thinks about his humanity, his increasing average ness, he is afraid. Minute by minute, as the seconds tick by, every stroke of the clock is against him, slowly rendering him obsolete, the black oblivion of being left behind swallowing him up, bit by bit.

He fears being rendered obsolete. He fears being part of the majority which sickens him. He fears being like one of them. He fears failure. He fears being the peak in the bell curve. But most of all, he fears that all the things he said, all the actions he took, were all just full of hot air, that he does not practice what he preaches, that he is becoming something he hates with every cell of his being – hypocrite. He hates the two-faces they portray just to fit in, or to be popular. He hates when they speak so strongly about their principles, when they would just shatter them five minutes later. He hates the way they would put people down, just to make themselves look good. And bit by bit, he’s becoming like them, and once again he is afraid.

As Satan had fallen because of his pride, he will fall the same way. Held back for two years, he dares to be arrogant. Being a playboy, he dares to preach on fidelity. Being two-faced himself, he dares to hate hypocrites. His wall of credibility falls slowly brick by brick. With the school stacked against him with their rumours, gossips and trivialities, he fights a losing battle. Their impression of him would not change, and neither would what they say. His reputation, already tainted by his actions from the past, are once again brought back to haunt him in the form of backstabbers and rumour-mongers. He retreats into his solitude where he feels safe and protected. He promised many things, he promised upright behavior, he promised smiles, he promised fidelity, but bit by bit, the burden of his promises weigh down on him, and soon his nose is nearly touching the floor, his back bent double by the judgments and stigmatization placed on him.

Nobody remembers who came in second. “Be on top, or who cares?” he fears being second. As he looks at the average people around him and he remembers where he came from, he feels that he has let himself down. He has the potential to do so much more, and yet he squandered it away. His hubris, his elitism had all been for nothing. His promises to prove himself have all turned out to be hot air. Relegated to an average college, with average people around him, he drowns in his aspirations, like the distant stars that even he cannot reach. Every new test paper he receives, every stumble moves his further and further away from his already impossible goal. The label of “good-for-nothing” is slowly becoming more and more permanent. With no exceptional talents, with no unique abilities, he’s just another one of them, another one of the majority. Regret is the only thing on his mind now - If he had not squandered away his years in his CCA, if he had not wasted his time in school, he would not end up in this state now.

A lack of discipline, a lack of will, affinity to failure is the qualities he has. None of which has ever served him well. “If only” do come up from time to time. He looks at himself and he sees more weaknesses than strengths. Without skills, without abilities, he sees so many people above him on the ladder he must climb to the top. Pilots, musicians, degree holders, university graduates all line up on top of him like millions of obstacles. And he thinks, they have so much more right to be arrogant than me, and yet they’re not. His skills that he prides himself the most on, writing and speaking have waned through years of atrophy. His essays are a shadow of what they used to be. His words, once used to move people to tears, can only elicit an eyebrow raise from most. Pride comes before the fall. He thinks he is so great, that his intelligence would carry him through the day that practice was for losers. Now his retribution has come, in the form of marks.

He wishes he could go back in time, to remedy the mistakes he has made in the past. That he could go back to primary school and relive the life he so misses now. That he could redo his secondary school, and not be held back by 2 years. He wishes that he had exercised a little more self restraint, and the rumours would not come. He wishes that he had listened when people told him he was digging his own grave. But stubborn as he is, arrogant as he is, he did not listen, and now he has fallen. But those years are gone now; he can never get them back. He is ancient, even in that 18 year old body of his. A dinosaur in modern standards, forever holding on to his obsolete beliefs, forever thinking that he is right, forever thinking that he is the best. And as the tests come rolling in, it’s one coffin nail after the other…moving him closer and closer to his grave. In other words, he’s screwed.