Anything But Red
4
“I‘ve been kicked out of nine of fifteen foster homes in the past 12 years.”
The walls are closing in on me. The man in white continues to scribble notes.
“What are you writing there?”
He looks up, shocked I suppose. “This? Oh, it’s just a few records for us to keep track of-
Just to see your progress. Keep going.”
“I got kicked out of my school in the sixth grade.”
“Why?”
“I tried to set it on fire.”
I can feel my eye socket throbbing. The cruelty of children echoing in the form of laughter through the playground. Shouted insults. Taunting pasts I never came to understand how they knew. Clothes tainted with mud and grass stains from the scrap. I am looking into the eyes of another boy, nose gushing blood. Another mask. My chest moves up and down heavily. When it came to authority I was suspended for a week. The other kid, who started it, got away with it all.
The taunting continued when I came back. The fights continued. Teachers said I was trouble, called home, threatened expulsion. I was no good. I would never pass. I wasn’t normal. I showed them. Or at least tried to. The only thing I managed to burn was my own homework in the boy’s washroom.
“Do you have enough info for that little notepad of yours?”
“Actually… I’m curious as to when you were first diagnosed with depression.”
The woman I was living with found me introverted. Troubled- I was always labeled as troubled. Distracted. No shit. I had been in therapy for years- for as long as I could remember. I always stopped going, but every time they moved me to a new foster home they made me go through with it again. I guess she had talked to the psychiatrist. I remember sitting in the hall, looking at posters of people, different coloured backgrounds. The happy ones always had more colour. The unhappy ones were always blue or black. For a while I almost wondered why I was never colourblind. I was fourteen. I’ve been popping the little red pills ever since.
The walls are closing in on me. The man in white continues to scribble notes.
“What are you writing there?”
He looks up, shocked I suppose. “This? Oh, it’s just a few records for us to keep track of-
Just to see your progress. Keep going.”
“I got kicked out of my school in the sixth grade.”
“Why?”
“I tried to set it on fire.”
I can feel my eye socket throbbing. The cruelty of children echoing in the form of laughter through the playground. Shouted insults. Taunting pasts I never came to understand how they knew. Clothes tainted with mud and grass stains from the scrap. I am looking into the eyes of another boy, nose gushing blood. Another mask. My chest moves up and down heavily. When it came to authority I was suspended for a week. The other kid, who started it, got away with it all.
The taunting continued when I came back. The fights continued. Teachers said I was trouble, called home, threatened expulsion. I was no good. I would never pass. I wasn’t normal. I showed them. Or at least tried to. The only thing I managed to burn was my own homework in the boy’s washroom.
“Do you have enough info for that little notepad of yours?”
“Actually… I’m curious as to when you were first diagnosed with depression.”
The woman I was living with found me introverted. Troubled- I was always labeled as troubled. Distracted. No shit. I had been in therapy for years- for as long as I could remember. I always stopped going, but every time they moved me to a new foster home they made me go through with it again. I guess she had talked to the psychiatrist. I remember sitting in the hall, looking at posters of people, different coloured backgrounds. The happy ones always had more colour. The unhappy ones were always blue or black. For a while I almost wondered why I was never colourblind. I was fourteen. I’ve been popping the little red pills ever since.