BeatUp

Crack! His knee slammed against my forehead, just above the left eye. I caught a glimpse of the crowd behind me, shouting and snarling like hungry dogs. Their breath made hot clouds in the cold winter air. Clouds that shot out from their mouths and rushed down to me; burning my ears.
I scrambled to try and tie up his leg; so I might avoid another blow, but the first had left me too dazed and the second struck with force. I wasn’t afraid and the pain didn’t come until after. I was humiliated, they had all seen me beaten. As I stood there in front of them and insisted that we go on, I felt their eyes screaming “weak.” Whispering and throwing their laughter out at me from behind the crowd. He didn’t matter anymore, but they did, more than all the world they did, and they knew it. I was now alone at the bottom of the food chain, all held rank above me.
Standing before them; like a defendant stands before his jury; with warm blood, sliding slowly down from my nose. I had been broken, not by fists or by knees, but by the attack of their judgment. I’d been found Guilty on all counts and was now at their mercy for sentencing.
That fight beat a self conscience into me. A self conscience, that till this day reminds me of what others think. A blind man regains his vision, I awoke to a nightmare. A nightmare I’d be forced to live inside. A nightmare where all that surrounded me was judgment; forever alone in front of the crowd, the snarling dogs, hungry for the strength that comes from the weakness of others. Always trying to prove myself worthy of respect and scrape my way up from the basement of popular opinion.
That’s how I learned to join the crowd. To blend in, never give them a chance to catch you alone. Provoke the charge of attack towards those whose weakness too closely resembles our own, before the crowd can sniff it out in you. Laugh loudly, but not too loudly, just enough for them to hear. A school of small fish swims together and creates the illusion of a single, larger, stronger one. What single little fish would be so brave, dumb to take the risk of swimming it alone.
Thankfully I had been able to hold the tears long enough to escape the eyes of the crowd. For some reason I thought that if I could just keep from crying, keep from letting the tears show themselves it would mean that all was not lost. It would mean that they weren’t able to take everything; but they did come, I was too weak to stand up against them. “I don’t want to cry,” I said out loud as the tears fumbled their way forth up from my gut.
My clothes were wet from the cold ice on the ground. The salty tears burned as they rolled over the cuts around my eye. It made my vision blurry and I slipped again jumping down off the rusty metal fence with its sharp prongs that I’d been forced to climb in order to escape the stares of those who’d watched my defeat. I’m just glad that I didn’t get stuck on that fence, like so many others have.
Those tears were not from the pain I felt pounding in my head, or the cuts on my hands and knees. Those tears were shed for the acceptance that I would have to submit to the crowd, if I wished to survive. The days of freedom had ended, no longer could I carefree go about my business and they about theirs. It was time to find a mask and sneak back into the good graces of the majority, become the crowd and never its victim. Learn to adjust to its movements without question and swim at a proper speed. Those tears were for my innocence, the innocence I’d be forced to leave behind on that cold winter day.