The brutality of man
It was back in the 70s at Besenkamp, West Germany, that I first remember the brutality of man. The cruelty. The fear.
Boys wanting to fight you when you got off the bus after school. For no reason. For being different? I remember him. At the back. Smaller than me. Egged on by the rest.
Viscous. Nasty. Human.
Boys coming upstairs knocking on our flat door to ask me out to fight. My dad dragging me out, sobbing across the street, screaming 'fight!, fight them!, fight!’.
Seeing a group of boys urinating into a plastic drink bottle near the playground. Then getting a poor little chap to drink it. Lying to him. Pretending it was a real drink.
Crying in my room every night, wailing to my parents. Pleading with them not to to send me to school the next day. The terror. The fear. The hopelessness. The misery of being alive in one's childhood.
I retreated into my fantasy world. Of demons and monsters and alien worlds.
Boys wanting to fight you when you got off the bus after school. For no reason. For being different? I remember him. At the back. Smaller than me. Egged on by the rest.
Viscous. Nasty. Human.
Boys coming upstairs knocking on our flat door to ask me out to fight. My dad dragging me out, sobbing across the street, screaming 'fight!, fight them!, fight!’.
Seeing a group of boys urinating into a plastic drink bottle near the playground. Then getting a poor little chap to drink it. Lying to him. Pretending it was a real drink.
Crying in my room every night, wailing to my parents. Pleading with them not to to send me to school the next day. The terror. The fear. The hopelessness. The misery of being alive in one's childhood.
I retreated into my fantasy world. Of demons and monsters and alien worlds.
