Poetic justice
Each day is a blank page of a book.At it's very beginning, we wake up, and we write the words in it.We tend to live our days with minds as clear as a summer morning, and we look to the future with hope, like a sailor that looks at the horizon, for what is future if it's not hope, and what is the horizon if not the ultimate desire.
We are programmed to balance our lives out, as is the universe, as are it's building blocks.Everything always moves towards chaos but tries to stay in balance, each Yin has it's Yang, each action provokes a similar or enhanced reaction, and make no mistake, whatever you do, good or bad, will come back to you, just like in a circle. This is a story of such a circle, and for what it's worth, it's a true story.
In my senior year in high school, I just moved into the capital from abroad. It was a tough time for me, I did not know anybody, I did not know the city, I abandoned everything that I had hundreds of kilometers away, and I was yet 17 years old. To make things worse, I was put in a boarding school, and believe me, it was somewhat a mixture of military and prison. It was not easy, but I was a tough kid, life was not very kind to me even before, so I managed somehow. The thing is that when you take children at that age, and put them all in that same box, in a situation of feeling far away from home, feeling left on their own, some of the primary barbaric instincts start surfacing. The pack mentality kicks in, they group up, and alpha-males tend to be dominant, days go by in fights, some for self-defense, some for the pack takeover. I did not mind much, had to throw a punch here and there, growl and grind my teeth a bit, but I managed to stay out of all that. And that's ok, cause anyway this story is not about me. It is however, about a boy named Glen.
Glen was from a small town in the south, at the very border.It was his first year in high school, he was small, always wearing a jacket 2 sizes bigger than him, which made him look even smaller. You could see that he was yet to build up manners, social skills, but he was quite, trying to stay silent and go by unnoticed. That did not work well for him.
Now, boarding schools have this military-like unwritten rules: older kids were like ranking officers, younger kids - privates. Some of the older kids, being frustrated because they were far away from their mother's cooking and skirt, were bullying the first-graders, spilling out all of their anger onto them, and making their lives a living hell. Just as an example, they would go into a room of a first-grader in the middle of the night, they would wake him up, make him sing, dance, do all sorts of bullshit, or maybe simply make him get out and buy them cigarettes, but in any case, they would beat him up in the process. Glen was no exception.
Another kid, my age, named James, a big, strong fella, coming from a village near Glen's hometown, was especially keen on Glen, who was twice smaller in size then James. I met James via Nick, a classmate of mine, and as it was a small boarding school we all used to hang out more or less together. I don't know why, but there was scarcely a day passing without Glen getting some kind of a treatment from James. I heard that he was beating him up, sometimes as if he was joking, like a dog would rumble up a puppy, and sometimes things were not that much naive. At one occasion I was present when James jumped at Glen for some triviality of which I can't even remember right now, started kicking him, and to Glen's luck I was strong enough to pull James off of him, just long enough so that he can get away to his room. James mumbled something towards me, and took off.
So, as the time was passing by, things were not getting better for Glen. Sometime towards the mid-terms, one evening while James was working his easy punching bag treatment over Glen, in a single dash of bravery, the kid pushed James off from him, his usual puppy face turned into a stern face of a grown man, and he said to James: "You know what? One day you will come to my hometown, and make sure to find me, I will buy you a drink". James flipped out: "Are you threatening ME?". We (two other guys and myself) barely managed to keep him off Glen, and even so, Glen took a beating. But this time, he did not say anything. No threats, no apologies, no pleads.
In my opinion, that was Glen's breaking point. Everything started from there.That was James's action that caused all sorts of reaction later on, and for Glen that was a door that he opened and went through.
In the second mid-term, I did not see much of either of them. I heard that James was again on to Glen, and that once he even dislocated his shoulder, but for all I know, that might all be just a roomer. It did seem real though.
Then, the high school finished, I moved on, everybody moved on, many years have passed and I have not seen most of them at all since then. About 8 years later, I attended a gathering of high school classmates, and Nick was there.We had a couple of drinks with the guys, remembering all the things we did in high school, and all of the sudden Nick asked me:
- "Do you remember Glen from boarding school? Do you remember James, the big dude that was beating him up?"
- "Yes I remember them", I answered. "What about them?".
- "Well, you don't know this, but, little Glen is a kind of a gang member in our hometown. He has a whole gang of people, doing all sorts of illegal shit, stealing, debt collecting, you name it. And they are quite notorious for their brutality. Even more, a month ago, James was in a night club, and imagine the coincidence, Glen was there that same night. So Glen pulled him out of the club and the whole gang beat him up to a pulp. James had 2 broken ribs, a broken arm, fractured scull and whatnot, and he is still in the hospital."
I did not know what to say. I remember that I couldn't help but admire the irony of things, the poetic justice that life imposes while moving in circles. I cannot say for sure, but, in all fairness and attempt not to judge nor justify anyone, I think that Glen would not have become what he is now, if there wasn't for James. In all his quietness, surrounded by growling teeth of the alpha-males, at some point Glen understood that he has to be stronger to survive in the world, at first to protect himself. However, once he got a taste of that strength, he wanted more. And James, in a way created Glen as he is now, and at the same time, created his own undoing. While he was beating Glen, he was somehow saving for and investing into a beating for himself.
This reaction, this poetic justice as I labeled it, is of a little help to Glen. His life changed, if James was not acting as he did, maybe it would've been different, maybe not. But one thing is for sure: the circle closed, Yin got his Yang, it took them years to find eachother, but some kind of justice was served, and a certain, even if illusory, balance is reached again.
Unfortunately, poetic justice offers only comfort, but can't bring back the time, it cannot make the filled page blank again.
That's the thing when you write words onto a blank page. After the ink sets in, and the words are read, they cannot be unwritten nor unread.You can just hope to finish the writing just as you have started it, as clear as the light of the full moon, and with one last sentimental look back to the past, for what are sentiments, if not all of those words that one writes down.
We are programmed to balance our lives out, as is the universe, as are it's building blocks.Everything always moves towards chaos but tries to stay in balance, each Yin has it's Yang, each action provokes a similar or enhanced reaction, and make no mistake, whatever you do, good or bad, will come back to you, just like in a circle. This is a story of such a circle, and for what it's worth, it's a true story.
In my senior year in high school, I just moved into the capital from abroad. It was a tough time for me, I did not know anybody, I did not know the city, I abandoned everything that I had hundreds of kilometers away, and I was yet 17 years old. To make things worse, I was put in a boarding school, and believe me, it was somewhat a mixture of military and prison. It was not easy, but I was a tough kid, life was not very kind to me even before, so I managed somehow. The thing is that when you take children at that age, and put them all in that same box, in a situation of feeling far away from home, feeling left on their own, some of the primary barbaric instincts start surfacing. The pack mentality kicks in, they group up, and alpha-males tend to be dominant, days go by in fights, some for self-defense, some for the pack takeover. I did not mind much, had to throw a punch here and there, growl and grind my teeth a bit, but I managed to stay out of all that. And that's ok, cause anyway this story is not about me. It is however, about a boy named Glen.
Glen was from a small town in the south, at the very border.It was his first year in high school, he was small, always wearing a jacket 2 sizes bigger than him, which made him look even smaller. You could see that he was yet to build up manners, social skills, but he was quite, trying to stay silent and go by unnoticed. That did not work well for him.
Now, boarding schools have this military-like unwritten rules: older kids were like ranking officers, younger kids - privates. Some of the older kids, being frustrated because they were far away from their mother's cooking and skirt, were bullying the first-graders, spilling out all of their anger onto them, and making their lives a living hell. Just as an example, they would go into a room of a first-grader in the middle of the night, they would wake him up, make him sing, dance, do all sorts of bullshit, or maybe simply make him get out and buy them cigarettes, but in any case, they would beat him up in the process. Glen was no exception.
Another kid, my age, named James, a big, strong fella, coming from a village near Glen's hometown, was especially keen on Glen, who was twice smaller in size then James. I met James via Nick, a classmate of mine, and as it was a small boarding school we all used to hang out more or less together. I don't know why, but there was scarcely a day passing without Glen getting some kind of a treatment from James. I heard that he was beating him up, sometimes as if he was joking, like a dog would rumble up a puppy, and sometimes things were not that much naive. At one occasion I was present when James jumped at Glen for some triviality of which I can't even remember right now, started kicking him, and to Glen's luck I was strong enough to pull James off of him, just long enough so that he can get away to his room. James mumbled something towards me, and took off.
So, as the time was passing by, things were not getting better for Glen. Sometime towards the mid-terms, one evening while James was working his easy punching bag treatment over Glen, in a single dash of bravery, the kid pushed James off from him, his usual puppy face turned into a stern face of a grown man, and he said to James: "You know what? One day you will come to my hometown, and make sure to find me, I will buy you a drink". James flipped out: "Are you threatening ME?". We (two other guys and myself) barely managed to keep him off Glen, and even so, Glen took a beating. But this time, he did not say anything. No threats, no apologies, no pleads.
In my opinion, that was Glen's breaking point. Everything started from there.That was James's action that caused all sorts of reaction later on, and for Glen that was a door that he opened and went through.
In the second mid-term, I did not see much of either of them. I heard that James was again on to Glen, and that once he even dislocated his shoulder, but for all I know, that might all be just a roomer. It did seem real though.
Then, the high school finished, I moved on, everybody moved on, many years have passed and I have not seen most of them at all since then. About 8 years later, I attended a gathering of high school classmates, and Nick was there.We had a couple of drinks with the guys, remembering all the things we did in high school, and all of the sudden Nick asked me:
- "Do you remember Glen from boarding school? Do you remember James, the big dude that was beating him up?"
- "Yes I remember them", I answered. "What about them?".
- "Well, you don't know this, but, little Glen is a kind of a gang member in our hometown. He has a whole gang of people, doing all sorts of illegal shit, stealing, debt collecting, you name it. And they are quite notorious for their brutality. Even more, a month ago, James was in a night club, and imagine the coincidence, Glen was there that same night. So Glen pulled him out of the club and the whole gang beat him up to a pulp. James had 2 broken ribs, a broken arm, fractured scull and whatnot, and he is still in the hospital."
I did not know what to say. I remember that I couldn't help but admire the irony of things, the poetic justice that life imposes while moving in circles. I cannot say for sure, but, in all fairness and attempt not to judge nor justify anyone, I think that Glen would not have become what he is now, if there wasn't for James. In all his quietness, surrounded by growling teeth of the alpha-males, at some point Glen understood that he has to be stronger to survive in the world, at first to protect himself. However, once he got a taste of that strength, he wanted more. And James, in a way created Glen as he is now, and at the same time, created his own undoing. While he was beating Glen, he was somehow saving for and investing into a beating for himself.
This reaction, this poetic justice as I labeled it, is of a little help to Glen. His life changed, if James was not acting as he did, maybe it would've been different, maybe not. But one thing is for sure: the circle closed, Yin got his Yang, it took them years to find eachother, but some kind of justice was served, and a certain, even if illusory, balance is reached again.
Unfortunately, poetic justice offers only comfort, but can't bring back the time, it cannot make the filled page blank again.
That's the thing when you write words onto a blank page. After the ink sets in, and the words are read, they cannot be unwritten nor unread.You can just hope to finish the writing just as you have started it, as clear as the light of the full moon, and with one last sentimental look back to the past, for what are sentiments, if not all of those words that one writes down.
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