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This is NOT a funny story.
James and Martin were slowly walking away from the funeral of their classmate Stephen… no… of their classmate Susan, her parents at last, and too late, recognizing her true gender. As they had expected they had been the only ones from their school there. Susan’s parents deliberately had scheduled the funeral at noon on the Wednesday of end-of-term exam week and made it very clear that they didn’t want anyone from school to come.
James and Martin, friends since they were toddlers, hadn’t really known Susan. In fact they had barely spoken to her. The reason they had skipped exams to come anyway was because they were guilty, at least partially, for Susan’s death. Not that they had been among those tormenting her, in fact they had done nothing, _ _ _ absolutely _ _ _ nothing. They had been too afraid and it had been so easy to do nothing even though they really, really should have known better. That’s why they were guilty.
After walking silently for a very long time Martin said: You look very nice in that new dress of yours.
James: Thank you. Good to hear since I will be wearing it to school tomorrow.
Martin grabbed his friend’s shoulders and almost shouted: You can’t do that! Look what happened to Susan! Her killers are still at large in school. Yes, they murdered her even if they didn’t use a knife or a gun and now you want to go through the same thing as her? You mustn’t!
James (calmly): I have to. Unlike Susan I have parents that fully support me …. and unlike her I will not be all alone and without support in school, will I Martin?
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Comments
Damn. Simply damn. Sad that
Damn. Simply damn. Sad that sometimes it takes the death of a friend to force you to confront yourself and be who you truly are meant to be.
I'm told STFU more times in a day than most people get told in a lifetime
Tears
This story brought tears to my eyes.
Another Meta-Twist
All too real, or so I heard. I really hope that someone at the funeral signs a statement that they were there, and they are allowed to make up the exams. I also hope that those who drove Susan to suicide get some kind of discipline.
This was another meta-twist for Bru.
-- Daphne Xu (a page of contents)
I usually prefer to write less dark stories
However, sometimes something like this pops up in my head. I have another very dark story outlined in my mind that I'll probably write down when I'm the right, or rather wrong, state of mind (it includes repeated beatings, a broken down marriage, arson, two suicides, a murder and possibly insanity, not very nice at all).