25 Hour Watch

Dear Diary,

I think that’s how these things start out.  I’ve never had a reason to write in a diary before.  I don’t even know if this is a diary, it is more like a story.  Let me start over.

To whom it may concern.  No, I don’t like that either.

This is the last will and testament of Michael Melfish.  No, that doesn’t feel right.

This is the true confession of one Michael Melfish.  Now, that is a perfect start to my story. You can probably guess by my last name, how my life has been up until this point.  Elementary and middle school were torturous.  It was just one constant punch line, endless jokes about my last name.  Every day was like some B movie cliché.  Teased about my glasses, being stuffed in to lockers and being pushed down were routine occurrences.  I know you’re thinking that those things don’t happen anymore, but I’m here to tell you they do.  High school brought new and exciting tortures; which made middle school and elementary school look like a picnic on a warm sunny day.  Not torturous like Chinese water torture, where it is just annoying and eventually you lose all self identity; it was more like medieval Europe torture.  Europe was where true geniuses lived.  They developed awesomely painful torturing devices, such as the Rack or the Iron Maiden. When girls are added into the B movie cliché, I called life; everything gets messy and becomes painful.  Being smart or witty gets you nowhere in high school.  You either have to be one of the good looking guys, or an athlete.

That incident in fifth grade didn’t help either.  I know everybody has that one embarrassing moment they wish people would forget, or if they’re lucky nobody notices.  Mine was very public and I am constantly reminded of it every day.  It happened during lunch, a lunch I wouldn’t forget any time soon.   I was quietly minding my own business, enjoying my lunch; when Brad McGhee stopped by to say something intelligent, I am sure.  Although Brad McGhee was the class clown and probably mentally retarded, he was one of the popular kids.  He would’ve been a likable guy, if his favorite past time wasn’t to make me into the butt of his jokes.  I can’t even remember what was said; something that surprised me, maybe even shocked me.  That was his type of humor.  Whatever it was, it made me laugh along with everyone else.  This would’ve been alright, if I was not trying to swallow a mouth full of milk at the same time.  The end result was me spewing milk all over his face, as I gasped for air.  Because of the beating I received after school; I was sporting a black eye for a week, my parents didn’t even notice.  The thrashing after school would’ve been painful enough, but I would, also, forever be known as the “Milk Boy.”  People I’ve never met before still, to this day, call me ‘Milk Boy.”

I don’t know exactly when the idea popped into my head, but it amazes me how things can change in a blink of the eye.  The idea was brilliant, beyond brilliant, genius level.  It was a way to get back at my parents; it was a way to get back at all those kids that teased me; it was a way to get back at my teachers.  The idea probably occurred to me sometime after Jason committed suicide.  I noticed Jason had more friends when he was dead, than when he was alive.  My father, who ignored me my whole life, would regret not paying attention to his son.  My mother, who found great pleasure in criticizing me every time she looked my direction, would feel guilty for never saying anything positive.  The people, who teased me, would suddenly be my friends.  The people, who ignored me, would become my best friends.  Everyone would be walking around saying, “remember when Michael…” or “There was that one time with Michael…”  It would be just like it was for Jason, and it was my ultimate revenge plan.

I mean, I had nothing to live for anyways.  Everyone was always nagging me about my future.  “What are you going to do after high school?”  “Where are you going to college?”  “What’s going to be your major?” “What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”  Everything had to be decided now.  I had no girlfriend, and only a couple of true friends.  My life was shit.

I didn’t have to commit suicide, like Jason, it could’ve been murder.  I, however, didn’t know anyone willing to kill me.  My friends would’ve never done it, and I felt silly putting an ad on the internet.  Could you imagine; “Seeking someone to bludgeon me to death with a baseball bat,” or “Expert marksman wanted, someone not afraid of murder?”  There was the lady arrested last year for hiring a hit man, off the internet, to kill her husband.   With my luck, something similar would happen to me; then I would just be known as the kid who went to jail in high school.

Thus, in my plan, it had to be suicide.  The problem was choosing the method of my revenge.  I didn’t want to shoot myself; if for no other reason, than I didn’t want people losing their breakfast, lunch, or dinner on my corpse.  The problem with either cutting myself, or taking sleeping pills, was time.  If someone found me before I was dead, I would spend time in the hospital, then years of therapy; and that was the last thing I wanted.  I could’ve always jumped off a building, except for my small fear of heights.  The one thing I knew was I didn’t want to suffer.  In the end I had decided to end my life by sleeping pills.  It would be easy, and best of all it involve no suffering.

I had worked out all the details; mostly just the date, time, and quantity of sleeping pills.  The night I was to take my revenge, things changed.  Remember how I said things change in a blink of an eye?  First, I was a zero with no real direction or future, and then I had a brilliant plan.  After that I had direction, a goal, but I still didn’t have a future; then things changed again.  All my countless hours of planning and thought, went out the window.  I don’t know why, but I suddenly felt my life was worth living.  For the first time in my life I was looking forward to my future.  It could’ve been the smile.   It could’ve been the girl.  It could’ve been the events that took place that night.  I just know that I went from being a nobody, to king of the school.