Creature #2

a ghost story from the mouth of a school bully.

I hated her
We all did
She was ugly and weird
She never shaved
Her legs were hairy like a man's, and
gag
so were her armpits

I suggested she was probably hairy "down there" too
said you could smell it sitting next to her
Soon we were all saying we could
holding our noses and wheezing around her
like the room was full of fish

She wouldn't even put on a bra
Teachers would call her up to their desk
she would just shrug her shoulders
make those things shake
They sent her to the office a few times, but she never changed 
she must have liked being a freak
a manly thing trying to be a slut
it was disgusting

Looking at her made me angry
physically enraged
but we never laid a hand on her
That would be gross
   She was an animal
We told ourselves
Only another animal would go near that.

Everything was better once we stopped acknowledging she existed 
First we stopped using her name
It was funny to call her anything else
Started with our little insults, but
Finally we settled on "it"
Because she was, if nothing else, an it.

She became inanimate
Another object in the room
Eventually we even stopped looking at it
Funny how being ignored can turn a weak person into a ghost 
Hovering in a liminal space between here and not 
always existing in your peripheral vision 

We made it know its place
We made it known that it wasn't wanted here 
And we didn't have to say a single word to it.

Months passed, and we had fun
But when things went quiet
Gaps in the conversation
Running out of jokes to make
There was an overwhelming silence
that threatened us to reflect
and I would say something just to make it stop

The others could sense my guilt 
They came for me next 
First a back-handed compliment
Then a snickering that would stop when I came near
   I got the message
For the first time I found myself eating alone
and wandering the halls
abandoned

I heard a sound coming from the bathroom
An injured animal? A weeping child? I couldn't tell
I was the only one in the hallway
I entered the girl's room
and the door slammed behind me.

One of the stalls was open 
It was huddled in the corner 
Beside the toilet
Black, matted hair
Pale limbs
Shaking

It didn't see me
It was hyperventilating
letting out little shrieks in between sobs 
I couldn't tell what it was 

"Do you need help?" I asked
It went silent
Stopped shaking
Then it got on all fours
And crawled towards me

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Thanks for reading!

Don't dehumanize people ❤️ or else they'll turn into something inhuman and get you!