To Be

By Dragoon

In the words of the Bard, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” The following is the condensed form of my life. The answer to the “To be or not to be” question, the only possible correct answer is stated herein. So, without any further ado, I present my life’s story.

The thing that I remember most about my youth is the house on 122 North Hanover Avenue. It was an old house, with a coal chute from the days when furnaces took coal fuel. The last I looked on it, the house seemed small, and cramped. It had lost its former charm. It may have shrunk, or maybe I’ve out grown it. We no longer live there, but rent it out.

My bedroom, which I shared with my brother, “J”, was in the back of the house, adjacent to my Dad’s office, a “breakfast nook” between our bedroom and the kitchen. Our bedroom was opposite the kitchen, the kitchen and my bedroom made up the two back corners of the house. In between my bedroom and the kitchen there were also wooden stairs to the basement, which had a concrete floor. We had an attic in the house, as well, and its stairs were behind those to the basement. The attic was hot almost any time of year and had one window that led out onto the roof; it was how we used to get onto the roof. It was far easier than getting out a ladder every time we wanted to clean the gutters.

The old house was small, but we thought it was fine and had many fine memories of it. We had a garage in the back yard. It was red, rotting, and made of wood. Last time I saw it, we estimated that it would probably fall in a year or two. It hasn’t yet, although I dare say that sadly it probably will soon. Our house was in between an apartment complex, and a larger house. There was a well-known political cartoonist that lived in the apartment complex, and once I remember soaking him with a Supersoaker while he was coming home on his motorcycle. Oh, poetic irony, I look back on it and laugh. We also had a structure in the back yard called the “Eagle’s Nest”. I had a girl friend named “A” and we used to have fun in the “Eagle’s Nest” with our imaginations and some cone shaped kaleidoscopes. In the games we played, I’d usually be a mage, “A” would play a centaur, and my little brother would play a ninja-like cat morph.

“A” attended SCAPA, so we didn’t go to school together, even though we lived on the same street, a very short distance apart. She went to live with her father in North Carolina, to get to go to the college she wanted to, as well as to get away from her mother, after a year at the same high school as me. She left me for her future, and she has her future, and I mine. Recently, she got back in contact with me, and I’ve regained hope of finding my past again with her. I missed her horribly, and still do.

I had another friend during this time named “Ja”. He was a year, or two, older than myself although about the same maturity wise. I do remember that he was one grade higher than myself in school, and he played saxophone. He would come over frequently as well, and play with our toys. We had a room in the basement for our things, and enjoyed hanging out down there. This friend introduced me to AD&D, and got me hooked, and for years afterwards I spent time making up my own systems for role-playing games like that, and never using them. I loved the game so much. We’d play from 1:00pm till about 3:30pm or so on Sundays. I lived a life in fantasy, and it was beautiful.

School back then was a different matter entirely, however. I spent my first grade year almost exclusively in SAFE for defying authority. I was later diagnosed with Tourettes Syndrome, allergies, ADD, and myopia. When I look back at my work, I see that I wasn’t nearly as “disabled” as people thought that I was, and I can’t find a spelling error in my notebook from that year. I also had a firm understanding of negative numbers, and actually figured out a problem with a negative solution that year, something like “3- 5 = -2”, if I recall correctly. In my second and third grade years I did much better, and was actually almost considered “well behaved”, because I was rewarded for good behavior. My third grade teacher, Mrs. “C”, was the best teacher that I’ve ever known. She appreciated my sense of humor, amazingly enough, and I flourished in her class. I also remember in those days getting to keep a box of tissues on my desk and a cardboard trashcan/box.

Then my fourth grade year everything changed. I changed special education teachers, and regular teachers as well. My fourth grade year was productive, in a way, but mediocre at best, from my perspective now. I remember being “punished” by being sent to a fifth grade class, with probably the nicest teacher that I never had in the school. It was a reminder that even being punished was better than putting up with mediocrity. That was my last year in that school and in our Hanover house.

After that I moved to my current home, and started attending a different elementary school. The change in surroundings threw me, the people were so different, and so was I as a result. The school was, to put it mildly, as homogenous as you can imagine. It was mediocrity at its most noticeable, from where I stood. I spent my fifth grade year mostly in SAFE, mostly to escape teasing in the classroom, and the fights that people initiated with me. I liked SAFE, actually, it was quiet, and it allowed me to actually learn. That year I played chess. At the one and only tournament that I’ve ever gone to for chess, I won a little trophy, for 2^nd best of the under 700 division. I also remember an important lesson that I learned there, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, after being beaten by a little five or six year old kid. He was the son of a Chess Grand Master, and I didn’t know, so he beat me, badly. That year I decided that I’d improve my mind, or at least my academic success. I attribute it to a major reward given, my first actual AD&D book, a book that I memorized. I also took up playing trumpet this year, giving up my past viola playing.

Then I went to middle school. This school was just an older version of the elementary school. It also had some new people for me to meet. Here I began my rapid academic ascent. I learned what a “GPA” was. I made it into honor roll, and I wasn’t surprised. I took up Magic: The Gathering, for a short time, and then gave it to my cousin, my role model. He was what I have become. My GPA soared, and people started to see me as “smart”. My last report card in middle school was my first, and only, straight ‘A’ report card that I’ve ever had. The years, even from this near position, flood together. They aren’t old enough to allow focus, or judgment. I wouldn’t judge them even if I could. They were merely part of life, and life doesn’t need judgment to be.

I went to high school… That’s where I am now. This is the living apex of my life. It’s the dynamic end stop. I enjoyed my year with “A”, and then mourned her loss, and rejoiced her return.

I live a life of cycles, but just because I change doesn’t mean I die. I never die, I just am, an eddy in the stream of time, just a little anomaly in a bigger picture, as we all are. Life, death, to be or not to be, they are all the same. The corpse in the ground is eaten by worms and becomes worm, or becomes ground. Now, I’ll sit, and live like the other end of the circle will never fall.