I've intentionally withheld some details from a lot of my stories.

I've let my hopes in certain the new things might influence my evaluation of the way

they actually are.

I don't think there's any point to that anymore.

At the end of the summer between kindergarten and first grade, I caught a stomach flu.

This is all the components of the regular flu except with the stomach flu you throw up in

a bucket and not the toilet because you're sitting on it.

The sickness gets purged from both ends.

This lasted for about 10 days but just before it had passed, the sickness was granted an extension

in the form of pink eye.

While eyelid was so fused together by the dried mucus generated during the night, that

my first day I awoke with the infection I thought that I had gone blind.

When I started first grade, I had a kink at my neck from 10 days of bedrest and two

swollen bloodshot eyes.

Dost was in another group and it didn't have my lunch.

So in a cafeteria bursting with 200 kids, I had to sit in the table by myself.

I started keeping spare food in my backpack that I would take to the bathroom to eat after

lunch since my school meals were usually confiscated by older kids who knew I wouldn't stand

up to them since no one would stand with me.

This dynamic persisted even after my condition cleared up since nobody wanted to be friends

of the kid who gets bullied, but they have some of that aggression directed towards them.

The only reason the stop was due to the actions of a kid named Alex.

...