“No- please- stop…” I whimper as another leg jams into my stomach and I try to swallow the digested bit of peanut butter and honey sandwich that rises up into my mouth. I want to cry, but what’s the point? I’ve cried enough over the years to know that it wont’s work. Nothing works. They just keep coming for me. Because I’m not like them. I’m defective. “Natural.” I wish my parents hadn’t been too dreadfully nearsighted to see what they were doing to me, I could have been like everyone else.
If I weren’t so nearsighted in a different way, I could have seen this coming. I had decided to take my glasses off during lunch. I misguidedly thought hat maybe then it wouldn’t be quite so obvious that I’m not like them, but really it only put me at further disadvantage. I couldn’t see them plotting my demise on the other side of the lunch room. Strike one against me.
Strike two was Siri not being there on the playground with me. If he had been there, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Sure, he had been oddly silent the last few days (which I chalked up to the surgery), but he was still my friend. They usually left us alone if we were together or around a sentry.
Strike three was the dumb sentry flitting with one of the teachers. Within seconds, the other kids jumped me and I tried to block their blows. I did nothing to fight back. Am I a coward? Absolutely. There’s no point being any other way. I’ve learned cowardice through experience. I would say survival of the fittest, but clearly that would rule me out. I am a genetic dead end. I don’t think I can take this relentless pounding anymore. I can feel my nose breaking with that last kick, and I try to move my hands to protect my face, slowly so they know I’m not worth their time.
And then it stops. I look up and holy fuck, it’s Siri and Christ, he is destroying everyone. Utterly mauling them. Siri had helped me in fights like this before but… his face. There was no emotion. No feeling, nothing. He looked like a robot, or a ballerina performing over-practiced moves with boredom. His eyes were completely dead. He frightened me more than the bullies had.
He’s going to kill these guys. While I harbor no love for them, I don’t want to them dead. I try to stop Siri, but he turns on me and in that moment I can seen into his dead eyes that I am nothing more than another bag of meat to be disposed of.
“Oh. Sorry.” Sorry? He almost killed me!
“Oh shit.” I heard my father say that whenever he stubbed his toe. I repeat it several times as I try to wrap my head around what just happened and what to do to fix this increasingly horrible situation.
And then the word vomit comes out. I’m not quite sure what I’m saying, but it’s nothing I haven’t been thinking for the last several days. I don’t know this boy anymore. The Siri I knew is dead. I am now completely alone. Even if we still play together, it will never be the same because the friend I had is so utterly gone. He’s no better than the kids who were beating me up.
~~~
I chose to write the prologue from the perspective of Pag because I feel like his perspective is missing from the story. The entire novel is about Siri and his perception of things, which gives a very biased view. I picked this scene because I think it summarizes Pag and Siri relationship throughout the book. I think my paragraph gives richer version of what happens in Pag’s head rather than Siri. Watts only ever gives half an allusion to what is happening in other characters’ heads, making ti difficult to get a full picture of what’s really happening. I chose to make Pag a rather depressed and articulate child even though Siri’s perspective on the situation doesn’t seem to fully expand on that idea. To me, all the children Watts writes seem rather adult. I think that neither of us were able to encapsulate how children think and feel.