Short Stories

Clay

Sometimes I believe that we are like clay. Let me explain further. Today in my art class my teacher was talking about clay. She said that if there are air-bubbles, it might break in the furnace, but when it breaks it might also hit the other sculptures. This got me thinking about humans. So here it is, here is why I've come to believe that we are like clay.

When we are born, we don't really know anything yet. We just wander around and think of life as an amazing thing. We are in this stage where everything seems perfect, there are no air-bubbles and no scratches. This is the packaged stage. Clay comes in these rectangles. It's in air-tight bags, shaped perfectly, in the perfect condition to work with. Just like babies.

See the thing is, when we are put on earth, all of a sudden the doctors hands grab us and wash us. We get pulled out of the plastic bubble of perfect. Your parents will soon after hold you and you get shaped in a way that makes you love or hate them. Their friends will make funny faces and you'll start to experience all of these emotions. You will start to experience what friends are like just by watching your parents' friends hang out with each other.

When you become a little older, let's say 7-8 years, you will have probably made some friends. They have their own interests that they will share with you and somehow, they managed to make you trust them enough to give them the power to shape you as well. This makes you vulnerable, but you're okay with that, you trust them.

A couple years later and you're basically a teenager. You're in middle school and you're figuring yourself out, or at least, that's what you think. You make this mold for yourself that you try to push yourself into, By folding any "imperfections" you try to squish yourself into it, but it'll only harm you. All those people have shaped you into this wonderful person, they love you and all your quirks, but sadly you can't see that.

See, the problem is that the second you came out of your mothers womb, society was watching. It already made a mold by scanning the most "perfect" person they could find. Well, physically at least. That person was dying inside, because they let society mold them. They let society force them into something they were not and now they watch by idly as society tries to do so with everyone else. Back to you.

Society already had this "perfect" plan for you. You would have no fingerprints on you, no dents, no cracks, but there was still a flaw. You would be empty, there would be too many air-bubbles, so many air-bubbles that soon enough you would burst.

People don't seem to understand that society doesn't only attack us in our teenage years, no, it starts way earlier. In middle school you already hate yourself and the way you were shaped by your loved ones. You start to hate that they did this to you, that they didn't make you perfect. They didn't make you fit the mold. And so while you try to fold yourself to fit it, you create more and more air. You shove away your loved ones while they desperately try to come back.

Finally you've somewhat made it to high school. You see, you're not who you wanted to be, but at least you're there. So high school, the place every book seems to call hell. Well turns out there is a reason for this. See hell is usually depicted as a place full of fire. It always has something to do with heat. Well guess what. This will be your Kiln; high school.

The first two years in can be compared to the first round of being fired up. You try to fit in with all the others. You mold yourself more and drift away from your true friends. Instead you make fake ones. They never actually care, but as long as you have friends you're not a loser and you can't think of anything worse than being a loser. So you stay with these people while they never stay with you. You push yourself into their conversations while you crave to be with your old friends, but they go to a different school so that doesn't work out. In the furnace you harden up, but not how you wanted. Sadly you cannot change anything now, but you really start to realize that you are not who you wanted to be. You realize that if you could talk to your 7 year old self, that that version of you wouldn't be proud of you. You start to feel this pressure of anger towards yourself, but you just can't change it. So instead you just sit there and let it all happen, there's no use in trying to change now anyway. The pressure keeps building.

In between the first and last two years of high school you kind of accept who you've become. You don't like it but you decide that it can't be that bad to not live out your dream, to not be your true self, to not be honest anymore. So you get painted, because at least then it'll seem like you have a more colorful personality. At least then you seem like an actual human being. At least then it'll seem like this is your true self and not just a mold of that "perfect" person. So now you have your least favorite colors on you.

The last two years of high school. You have no choice but to be put in the furnace again. This time to permanently be a certain shape and color that you are not. Junior year is the year that is known to be the worst of all. All the pressure of all the tests, all the collage applications, or really anything relating to college. All this pressure is back on those air-bubbles. Your loved ones are still trying to be close to you, but you probably forgot about that already. Without realizing it, they are still very, very close to you. Dangerously close even. They don't know that this is bad, but you do, so you continue to push them away, trying to save them from... You. You start to realize that all this time you're putting them in danger. You don't hate them, unlike what you made yourself believe. You're trying to save them from your self-destructing ways. You know you're about to burst. You're so empty without them, but you think it's for the best. You don't know that this emptiness is becoming a huge air-bubble in your system. If you had just let them in, if you had simply trusted them, you would have been able to be fixed. See they still have the power to change you. Loved ones don't care about science. They don't follow the rules, simply to watch you collapse. They can still fix you, no matter how ignorant you are to this. But you just don't realize it. You've been in this mold for too long. You think there's no way out. So eventually, you burst.

You burst and as all the bubbles leave your body you break. Your broken pieces cut and dent your loved ones, your real friends. Obviously your fake friends don't get impacted, as they were never close to you. They just stand by watching, some even laughing, because finally the wannabe is gone. Wannabe. I guess there is something about as bad as loser.

Your parents have lost a little part of themselves. It broke off when a broken piece of you hit them. Your friends are bleeding out, as they have been pierced by you. They don't know what to do so they just let it happen. They don't know they are now also being hollowed out. Life passed by without them realizing it. They just go with it. No more soul in them.

Your classmates start to miss you. Not really though. They just seem sad now that they realize that they liked the first version of you. They realize that they forced you into this mold that wasn't made for you, that they should've just let you be you. They liked the "imperfect" version. The version that was about to be colored by yours truly, but you never got the chance to pick up the paint brush. eventually they move on, but they will still have this small dent of trauma in them.