Art News To Muse

This is the prologue for a novel I'm writing called, "Nobody."

Ma got upset sometimes.
A lot actually.
I just told myself that she didn’t realize what she was saying to me, that her words could be so nasty. Maybe she just didn't know. That's a possibility, right?
And her usual pretty hazel eyes transformed into a sickly green when she spewed her toxic acid.
I would myself she had been in an evil catatonic state, brainwashed by someone who hated me very much.
One particular school morning lays deep in my memory.
“You’re so ugly,” she had viciously spat at me as I passed her bedroom door. "Why did I wind up with a daughter that looks like you?"
That was the door no one ever wanted to pass if she was in vile mood. If the door was opened, she could see and scream the first insult her dark soul could muster. This only happened a few times out of each month; so my young heart tried not to take any of these things seriously.
But the stubborn tears would streak my cheeks at her cruel belittlements, especially the ones she served me with that morning.
I was used to such harsh taunts anyway.
Kids at school called me names and made me feel just like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I was simply too unfitting to join in the games at recess or engage in conversation with my classmates.
The only friend I truly had was Tilda who was only at my side, sitting next to me on the bright yellow school bus or eating an energy infused breakfast of warm doughnuts, orange juice, and milk. But since we were in different grades; classes and lunchtimes had caused separation anxiety for me.
I was so utterly alone.
My teachers had looked at me with such concern and compassion.
It was so humiliating, so unbearable inside that they could truly see the isolation and the treatment my peers constantly gave me. I was the quiet child, the docile crybaby; exiled from all who saw me.
I could always be seen standing amongst the trees staring with watery, blurred eyes at the other children at play, longing enviously to be one of them.
The teachers labeled me special, meek, and mild. I had to take all these adjectives with a grain of salt; thinking that this was simply pity and that being on Honor Roll every quarter was a penance, not a reward for intelligence.
The older I got, the more I realized how hard it was to talk to people. Communication was a terrifying, very cruel master that I could not obey properly.
My voice would crack and mutter so incoherently that people perceived me to be dumb and ignorant; especially since I also don’t have good eye contact. I was afraid that they would find out what I lacked.
But they probably already found out the cold, hard, shockingly honest truth.
I wielded no great beauty, no abundant knowledge, or astounding significance.
I was a Nobody.
A Nobody!