Day Three hundred and three - Dreary town

There's a story I've been meaning to tell here for quite a while now, but I always end up forgetting to do so for some reason. I've made any number of mental notes, but they always evaporate from my mind. So there's this guy that leaves on my street, right? He lives just up the road. Good looking guy, maybe getting a bit pudgy with the years, but still, a guy most women would find interesting. Married - though whether happily or not I wouldn't be able to say - to a gorgeous girl, who was in fact an online 'friend' of mine, though we never talked. They have a beautiful daughter, and I often see him down at the supermarket, or walking their dogs. What's so special about this guy, you might ask, that merits this attention? Well, you see, he was one of my high school bullies. I met him when I first started my eighth grade, and I think I might have illustrated way back when I wrote about that time, just how awful the school I went to was, and how pretty much everyone in my class was 2-3 years older than I was. Well, one of my classmates was... let's call him Henry. He was already one of the tallest in class, and certainly one of the strongest. I got to know just how strong he was first hand right from the start : the moment this motherfucker laid eyes on me, he punched right on the side of the arm, as hard as he could. That was a ritual that lasted the whole year, what an immense joy that was. After eighth grade, though, I never saw him again, I don't think. And aside from a few moments of PTSD flashbacks where I vividly and painfully remember each punch he gave me, I rarely ever thought of this guy.

But a few years back I came across him right here on the street where we lived in, him with his amazing, hot wife, and he recognized me at once. So did I, but I did him the courtesy of pretending I didn't know him. The guy didn't pay me in kind, and moved towards me. And as he approached me, I saw him reaching out a hand towards me, as if we were long lost friends. The girl was beside him, an expectant look in her face. I left the hand hanging where it was presented to me. I looked at him, he's still an imposing figure, and though I've grown to be just as tall as he is, that teenage part of me still felt intimidated. I asked him what the fuck he wanted, and he genuinely seemed to feign confusion. Maybe he expected me to welcome him with open arms. For long moments his hand still hung extended, a slight look of perplexity crossing his eyes. Get the fuck outta here, I told him. And straight to the girl's face I told her how this fucker basically ruined my day every single day. But that was twenty five years ago, Henry says, thinking it would somehow make things ok. 

There are things that I just don't get. I mean, this guy was always a lunk. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed neither, but this guy was pretty much the epitome of the guy who'd only get by on his looks, a harebrained piece of beefcake. He was a pretty bad student, and not that I wasn't either, but already by then I was so incredibly arrogant because I used to think I could run rings around anyone there, at least on an intelectual level. Sure, I didn't know maths of physics, but I was already reading philosophy and more erudite literature. And true, maybe I didn't get everything I read, but oh oh oh, the sense of arrogance and superiority it granted me... and yet this fucker, I came to learn, got a degree in some form of engineering and the other, got the kind of life I could never dream of. Man, out of all the things I could have chosen to be, why did I have to choose mediocrity? The very thing I loathe the most.