Big Man: The Scary Boy in My School
By Christina Scolaro
He's huge, he's scary, and he's hungry. He eats people as a snack and spits out their bones. Lakes look like puddles to him. Trees are small plants, and wind turbines are little fans that barely cool him down. Buildings are just little play toys, and pets look like ants on the ground. He uses big bonfires to cook his meals and has to eat 41 servings of dinner to barely fill his stomach. I am scared of him. Standing at 67 feet tall, his name is Big Mack.
They say he sleeps in a cave, and I can feel the whole town shake when he walks. He can crush a building with just one stomp. The town and I hide from him. Scared he is going to hurt me or worse, kill me. He has a dark, evil aura that makes people run far away. Some have even moved towns out of fear. He is the town outcast. No one dares to face him, knowing that the outcome won’t be good. So, I choose to avoid him at all costs.
One time, my friends dared me to go up to him and try to make him laugh. I was so nervous that he would get mad at me or even hurt me. While I was walking up to him, I was shaking with each step. Sweat dripped down my face and shivers down my spine. I get to him and crack the funniest knock-knock joke I could think of. He looked up at me with a straight face, then got up. Thoughts are running through my head. Is he going to yell at me? Eat me? Kill me? I am violently shaking right now. He’s staring down at me. The light from the ceiling slowly gets dimmer as I sink into his shadow. The bystanders are ready to sprint out the door. The next second, he breaks out in immense laughter. Everyone is shaken. Shock at the fact that he showed any positive emotion.
In reality, he is just a 6'7 shy emo boy in my school who is misunderstood. He stays to himself because he is scared of making friends. Every time he has tried to make a new friend, they just run away in fear. He and Matt have become very good friends, but I am the only one. He doesn't talk to anyone but me, for fear of scaring away more people. His real name is Matt. He loves eating sunflower seeds. He enjoys long walks and loves to chat. Everyone makes rumors about him because he looks scary and tall, and makes fun of his name for sounding like Mack. I shut those rumors down really quickly because I think Matt is an amazing person. He is funny and caring and doesn’t deserve the hate he gets. He just wanted to fit in with everyone else.
People avoid him in the hallways like the plague and don't make eye contact with him. They think that he's going to attack them. Sometimes when he walks down the aisles of desks, he knocks over some papers because his arms are so long, but people think he's doing it on purpose. It is not his fault that he is the way he is. He experienced a growth spurt and grew out of his bed, but when the school found out, they went ballistic and started a rumor claiming that he was so big he had broken his bed. I comforted Matt, saying that he was born like that and couldn't change the way he was made, and that he should embrace his differences and not hide them.