Inclusiveness the Lack of In Society
Inclusiveness the lack of in Society
This is an excerpt from the “Terrible Horrors of Life”. It is a fictional story about six teens from four different families, who have faced some terrible facts of life. Though these six teens and families are fictional their experiences are a real fact in life. In the last chapter of this story, we get the conclusion of what these teens and their families have experienced, with divorce, Mental Illness, to a teen choosing a lifestyle of being Goth and her mother who has a secret political agenda programed by a cult as a teen to believe that even being Goth makes her Daughter a monster who is a vampire and sucks blood. We have two teens who face the dilemma of coming out of the closet to their families. We have a teen who is struggling with the fact his father is in prison, and his mother now divorced. This teen is dealing with all the ramification of finding himself blaming himself for his parent’s divorce and the injustice of his mother demands on her older son to babysit the younger siblings while she works to support the family. We have a widower who is dealing with his two teens, over the loss of their mother. The issue here is that one teen after a year is still dealing with severe grief, while his father is now dating again. In our fourth family we have the issue of a mother who under advice of a friend went to a doctor a who prescribed a powerful behavior altering drug illegally. The mother is now addicted, drinking, and believes her husband is cheating on her, and she is just one bottle of Vodka away from suicide. An intervention has her in treatment and recovery. The real issue here is the stigma of Mental health and what she has to deal with when once loyal friends now abandon her, on the vicious lies and rumor by the one friend who got her addicted. The Terrible Horrors of Life deals with these four-issue society faces in many families and communities when inclusiveness is a social illness, and these teens and families face the in-equality in society. All they want is to be accepted to erase prejudice, be treated fairly, and excepted as equals. The final chapter of “The Terrible Horrors of Life”, opens when a high school social studies project is presented on stage where these teens cry for inclusiveness, to be accepted, and to have a voice.
Chapter 10
The Terrible Horrors of Life
Excerpt
“Thank you everyone for attending our Social Studies Class Extra Credit project called ‘The Terrible Horrors of Life’, Dialogues and Monologues on social issues that teens face today. Each scene will touch on six topics which today teens face in society and their families. The teens in our program are seniors from our Social Studies class, each teen presenting a Dialogue or Monologues expressing a point of view to which these presenters have experienced personally. They were selected by committee based an essay they submitted as seniors from the senior student body or members of the Senior Social Study class. With exception of two Junior High students who’s essay were selected on merit, and they were asked to prepare a dialogue or monologue for today’s program. Since this is a senior class project in social studies class for extra credit these two Junior High Students will be represented by a senior as a stand in to present their monologue based on their essay. The two Junior High students will receive an extra credit in their Civic Class for their essay. The Dialogues and Monologues will be presented in a format that preserves the privacy and anonymity of the presenter as the topic they are speaking of are of personal nature these teens have experienced and wish to share that experience today in confidence. Your program brochure will not list their names or name what the topic is. Their presentations will be given behind a privacy screen that will only show a silhouette of the student, a background set in shadow and their voices will be electronically alter slightly to assure that anonymity and privacy. All presenters have parental permission to present their dialogue or monologue as long as, we adhere to privacy and anonymity in how we present their dialogue and monologue. Please refer to your program for details on the Social Studies extra credit program and how each senior student earns that extra credit for their participation in this project. Without further ado. I present to you “The Terrible Horrors of Life.”
***
Three boys in silhouette and dark shadows chased another boy across the stage. “We got him now. He is on the playground by the swings. Hey freak, crooked face, who said you can come into our part of the playground. It is off limits to you retard.” They froze, as there victim stopped turned toward them and shouted.
“Leave me alone!”
Lights go down around the three bullies frozen in their tracks, a weak fallow spot reveals the silhouette of a teen facing the audience. You can barely see his face as he speaks out to the audience.
“It has been like this every day of my life, for as long as I can remember. I used to stutter and stammer since I was 2 years old when I had an illness froze the right side of my face. From the first day in Kindergarten, I learned just how different I was when my peers would ask why my face was lopsided, and why did I talk so funny. By the second grade I was called a freak, retarded, crooked face, can’t even read out loud without making us laugh. By the 3rd grade I was the kid who couldn’t even read, always got “E’s and “F’ grades in everything. Even the teacher called me retarded and ridiculed me in class. She told the class she didn’t know why I brother to teach you, and she gave up me. On the playground I was shoved around, knocked to the ground by the bullies. Kicked and thrown dirt on. Asked if my mother dropped me as a baby. Run home to you mommy you freak. By the end of 5th grade, I was sent back three grades to start over. It didn’t stop the teasing and the bullies. I was now a failure having to repeat 3 grades on top of being a retard, and freak. By the time I repeated three grades over, my grades improved, my stutter and stammer vanished. I wish I could say my bullies vanished. By the time I was in high school, my self-esteem was as low as Death Valley below sea level. By the time I was 17 I tried to kill myself and several times as an adult.”
“The bullies never went away since I was 2 when even my siblings and cousin’s bullied me. Some might believe that when the bullies vanish, so do your problems. I am telling you bullies never go away, unless they are arrested for coming into class with a gun and killing students. Or those they victimize go killing students and targeting their bullies in school. Many of us are victimized on social media these days, they don’t kill others, they kill themselves over a stupid post on social media shaming them for being fat or different or over some post about their lifestyle or deliberate lie about them. Bullying can have lasting physical, mental, and emotional effects. While the target of the bullying bears the brunt of the harm, everyone is impacted by it. Sometimes bullying crosses, the line into harassment when it is based on race, ethnicity, sex, disability, sexual orientation, national origin, or other factors. The impact of bullying can be a lifetime of Low-self-esteem issue, depression, anxiety disorders, self-destructive behavior, substance abuse, self-harm and the difficulty establishing trusting, reciprocal friendships and relationships. My bullies may have stopped. But I have not stopped running from them in my nightmares, even though I am in therapy, my life will never be the same. Bullies come in all sizes, and ages. Your peers in school, your boss at work, or even your teachers in school. The biggest bully is you when you keep chasing after yourself and blaming yourself for what the other person did to you. When you stop chasing yourself you can start healing yourself.” The light on the teen dims, as you see him chasing off the bullies. Scene goes black, transition to Scene 2. Spot comes up on teen (a stand in) down stage right of cabin, in a rocking chair, slowly rocking in the shadows.
***
“I knew of other kids in school who live in a single-family home because the father is divorced and raising the kids, or the mother is divorce raising the kids. Some just don’t bother with divorce, the mother or the father just takes off. There are many reasons for divorce, a man or women just walks out. There is cheating on a spouse, abuse of a spouse or children. Drink or drugs or both, and even mental health issues. There is where a father or mother is imprisoned. Then there is what you call we just don’t love each other anymore, or incompatibility. Each state has different reasons why you can divorce a person, even what they call no-fault divorce that is where you don’t need a reason to divorce a person. When there is children involved it is a lengthy process to gain a divorce until all matters regarding children custody and support of those children. Once all these matters are settled, a divorce is granted. When a divorce is granted it is no guarantee that life goes on as before for the children or the single custodian parent. I never thought that my parents would divorce under any circumstances. I am still coming to grips with the fact that my parents are divorced, and my father is not around. Some fathers choose not to be around, while others are there in your life taking the responsibility of sharing custody and supporting financially and morally. Some divorced parents remarry, and you find yourself with a blended family they call it today. You have stepsiblings, or half-siblings born into the family.”
“You suddenly wake up one morning to find a parent has moved out and never coming back is very unsettling. You suddenly find yourself either blaming yourself or blaming the parent who kicked out the other parent. The parent who is taking care of you now, often doesn’t reveal the real reason for the split up. Which only makes it worse when you find yourself blaming yourself for you parents splitting up. They say you are too young to understand, or we just don’t love our spouse anymore when in reality you learn later your father or mother was cheating on their spouse. Maybe if you are too young you may not understand that. It doesn’t make the hurt go away or the self-blame go away. You want that missing parent to come back home or you don’t.”
When you realize they are not coming back home, you put on a brave face and try to be supportive of the parent in the home. You even agree that it is the best for everyone, when in reality you feel the at home parent is asking too much of you to accept the situation. When you are an older sibling in the home, you now must put on a brave face for the younger siblings. When the single parents has to go out and work to support the family. The burden of watching your younger siblings fall on you. You are asked to make the sacrifice of your own teen life so that parent can provide for the family. You resent the fact that you have to stay home after school, while your teen buddies can have a social life, play sports, go to a movie, meet girls. You have resentment for having to make that sacrifice when it wasn’t you who asked your parents to divorce. The kind of resentment that festers and causes conflict between you and that single parent and further resentment for the absent parent in the home. Who is divorce good for the abused spouse, the spouse who was cheated on, the spouse who finds the other spouse suddenly in prison? Is it really good for the children?” The same can be said for the parent who left the family willingly or not, who suddenly finds themselves without a family regardless of the reason they are without a family. Yes, some fathers or mothers are unable to feel that loss, don’t care and the victim here again is the children.”
“It is a fact that some adult children of divorced parents are apt to find the responsibilities of marriage to be easy to get out of by example of their being divorce in the family. Marriage vows are not as sanctified and honored as it once was for many reasons such as how easy it is to get a de-fault divorce even with children. Commitment issues, mental health, adultery, economic reasons, abuse, and criminal activity that puts a parent in jail or prison. What might be best for a parent to have a divorce isn’t always a victimless situation for the children. I never thought I would be another statistic of having divorced parents as a teen. Nor that my mother had to deal with a spouse who went to prison for a white collar, crime. My father was a good man to his children, just not so good with other people’s money. He had that Midas curse upon him, and like Midas greed for Gold he touched his daughter who turned to Gold. My father my may have not turned his family to Gold, he left us morally broke and struggling financially. Divorce was the only way my mother could save the family from further harm. I can accept that, though at first I was resentful of the sacrifices that where asked of me for the sin of my father as I saw it. We can make ourselves victims for life or we can raise above being victims. My mother has risen above remaining a victim of the circumstances of one man’s actions. She works hard, takes college classes to better her job opportunities. It has taught me to rise above my resentments, to stop resenting the sacrifices placed on me because of my fathers greed. I have learned to hate the sin, not the sinner, for to hate the sinner, and the sin. You give the sinner no chance for repentance for their sin. You make yourself a victim of that sin when your resentment blames the mother who is just trying to do the best she can for her family. Divorce isn’t easy under any circumstances. Nor is it easy for the children affected by divorce. Nor is it easy for the parents either, or as a teen. I can now see both sides of the coin now. When we see both sides of the coin of societies issues today, will we be able to move forward and stop being victims blaming victims.” Spot fades on the rocking chair, transitions to scene 3. The lights on the cabins porch come up revealing the porch swing gently swaying as if someone is sitting in it and swinging. A voice is heard the speaker unseen (taped audio).
***
“It is has been nearly a year since mother passed away. I can still see her out on the porch swing, with me sitting next to her. She is telling me, how as a young girl she sat in this very swing with her grandmother, my great, great, grandmother on moon lite nights. The air is full of the nights sounds of a Whippoorwill, Owl, and the baying of the lone wolf at the moon in the distance. The buzzing of night insects, and fireflies in the air. My great, great, grandmother would be telling my mother her stories of her grandparents, my great, great, great, grandparents who came in a cover wagon from the east in 1873 with their four children to this very spot and built a cabin, cleared the land for a small vegetable patch. In time other freed slaves would arrive in the area and a small black community was born. With hard times to come the black community struggled, prospered, and struggled again until it faded away into history. Only that cabin remains with the land still owned by my family mother told me. Mother is gone now, but the stories she shared with me, and my sibling will always be a part of me. In my grief over her sudden passing, I found I was forgetting those stories and replacing them with the memories of her illness. Her death consumed me and soon that was all I had of her memory, those final hours when her illness took her from me. But I wasn’t the only ones who lost her. There was my father, and my sibling, and I resented them for being able to move on beyond their grief. I thought they were forgetting her memory. I believed they were supposed to still be grieving her death like me. I was wrong, it was I who should have moved on passed my grief. For I was reliving her death over and over again, and in that grief, I was forgetting the stories my mother told me. I was forgetting the smile on her face when I presented her a hand drawn birthday card. How she would laugh at my attempt to tell a joke when I messed up the punch line. I forgot the time she dried my tears when I fell and scraped my knee trying to learn how to roller skate or when I was stung by a bee. I forgot the simple things about my mother, and the grander things about her as well. All I could remember in my grief was her death, that dark corner in my heart that refused to let her go.”
“I resented my father and my sibling for moving on beyond their grief, blaming them for forgetting mother, when in reality it was I who was forgetting, remembering only her death and not her life. Her life was 37 years of living, enjoying life, loving her husband, her two children. The memories of her Grandmother telling her stories of her family heritage, culture, and struggles. About that covered wagon and the family of six who built that cabin as free men, woman and children from the oppression of a dark era in our democracy. None of that ended when that generation passed on as long as we had the memories told us by our mother, her grandparents, my great, great, grandmother of her parents new beginning in a small log cabin with a porch swing were generations after generations kept alive the memories of those passed on to a better life. Death is an ending of the physical body, it is not meant to be the ending of a person’s life, their memories, generations of memories, traditions, culture, and yes, our struggles.”
“Grief is a process where we go from the pain of losing a mother, father, family member, friend to honoring that loss by moving on. There is no moving on when you allow grief to keep burying the dead over and over or that grief will bury you. It took an intervention by those who loved me, to show me the dark side of my grief and where it was taking me. I wanted to strike out at them, how dare they tell me to move on, that it wasn’t okay to move on. How dare they ask me to forget mother. How dare they forget mother. Until my father told me that he has not forgotten his wife, my mother for he sees her, every day when he looks at me or my sibling. Death is never an ending as long as, there is loved ones living. That I had to stop remembering her final hours, that grief is only meant to celebrate life, not mourn the dead body. The pain of a loss is like a cut on the finger it hurts, but in time the wound heals, the pain goes away and leaves a scar to remind us how we got that cut, who kissed the wound and made it better.” The lights go out and the swing and the creaking of the swing continued for a moment or two then stops lights come up on rocking chair on the porch, figure in rocking chair is in shadows.
***
“There are two different subtleties when it comes to the lifestyles we find in our society. Those lifestyles a person chooses for themselves, and a lifestyle that is chosen for you by circumstances not in your control. A teen may choose to be Goth to wear black Goth regalia, black make-up and follow an established lifestyle of the Goth society. While a gay teen follows a lifestyle that is chosen for them, because of the biological make up of their genetic disposition at birth. The imbalance of hormones that determine your sexual identity as either Hetero or Homosexual. Some may disagree and say that it is a choice like the lifestyle of being Goth, you can chose to not be Goth or gay. Goth or gay lifestyles, have two different aspect as seen as equally abnormal in the same pot of bigotry stew. I chose to be Goth not because I am depressed, or a Satan worshiper as some might view. I chose Goth as a lifestyle because I do not want to be pigeonholed as belonging to only a certain category such as a refined young lady any mother would be proud of. There are many different lifestyles out there that society deems abnormal as they try to pigeonhole their child or teen into a category that is normal and respectable. They see many lifestyles as normal and respectable because they have tradition and culture instilled in them by centuries of their being acceptable lifestyles. We have the Amish way of life forsaking modern technology. A lifestyle based on a religious belief, an Anabaptist belief. We have those who have a lifestyle of having a highly technical lifestyle such as having a smart home with all the conveniences of today’s technology that gives them the feeling they are living in the far future. The opposite of an Amish lifestyle. Some may even think a smart home and all that tech is corrupting a person. Yet the two are lifestyles of choice they follow, just as it would be for a person to choose to be a dancer, or an actor. A doctor, teacher, firemen, policemen or farmer. You could even add, the lifestyle of being a housewife, or even as a househusband, where the man stays home and takes care of the family, while the wife works full time. Choices vs fate, that which you are born with or born into. I wasn’t born into a Goth family or born with some genetic marker that says you are Goth, gay, a techno geek, or Comicon fanatic. I made a conscious choice to be Goth. I am not planning to self-harm myself because I am Goth. I am like any other high schooler. I struggle to have good grades, I like sports, I have the same opinions on what the heck is going on in this world, and in my own back yard. I bleed the same human blood, and I don’t suck blood like a vampire. I am not a vampire. I am an 18-year-old teen with aspirations to go to college, have a successful career. If along the way I am still Goth so what, the clothes should not define me, nor my dark make up.
I recall a conversation where we were discussing those different subtleties involved here, where me being Goth I could eventually outgrow being Goth easier than my friend can stop being a gay teen or a little person a dwarf, have red hair, green eyes, or born with only one arm. He said I can’t change what my genetic disposition defines me when at conception or by some missing gene, or an imbalance of hormones. My friend cannot make that change, after the fact. They didn’t chose to be a gay teen or have a gender identity issue since birth because of some mix up in the womb were they were born female, yet their hormone imbalances says they are male with female genitals. To be transgender isn’t a choice you decide after your birth. You can correct that mix up surgically. Can you correct being gay through gay conversion? Does suddenly waking up after gay conversion find you are a totally different person. Are you now a genius or a fool? Do you have green eyes instead of blue eyes? Do you love your parents differently, or the same? Has your personal views and opinions changed? Are you now a cynic or a philosopher? Do you bleed a different color blood? Did gay conversion really truly turn your son or daughter into a heterosexual or into what you wanted them to be, not what they were born with. Goth or gay lifestyles, have two different aspect as seen as equally abnormal in the same pot of bigotry stew, when they are very normal for those who must deal with that bigotry in society.”
“Inclusiveness is when the seesaw is equally balanced by the same weight at each end of the plank. Where choice and design at birth are equal in society and abnormal is normal and that bigotry stew is something we can eat without choking on it.” Light fades, transition to front of stage scene 5, where we find our presenter (stand in teen) at a desk going over something he has just written. The audience hears what he is reading (taped audio).
***
“I am writing this essay to speak about a problem an immediate member of my family has gone through recently with a mental health issue. I will not speak of the intimate details of what that issue was, except to say it was devasting to have that family member separated from those who loved them dearly when they were placed in an inpatient program to get help. It took a serious intervention on the part of the loved ones to get the help they needed. We supported that family member by caring and continuing to love them. Some of us where there daily during those first critical few weeks with our support while our family member went through not only an emotional crisis, but a physical crisis as well brought on by a prescription drug and alcohol a deadly mix. It was a long recovery for our immediate family member. When that family member returned to their home to be welcomed and accepted it was for them like never having left in the first place. Because we knew that family member was accepting their problem and getting the help they needed to overcome the problem.”
“Mental health for some is a struggle to see that they need help. They are in denial or even a family member is in denial that their family member is having a mental health issue. When two sides of the fence is in denial it is very difficult to get help even when you are the one who is suffering with a Mental Health issue. Mental health issues come in varies forms from behavioral addictions caused by drugs and or alcohol. Some suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, and such disorders as schizophrenia, Bi-polar, ADHD, and so many more. The DSM-5 the diagnostic and statistical manual of Mental disorders list hundreds of Disorders from personality disorders, childhood disorders, substance use disorders, and subcategories. The one thing it does not truly cover is the “Stigma of Mental Health” in society as a recognized Disorder. The Stigma of Mental Health isn’t a condition you can treat with a medication for the person inflicted. This Stigma involves negative attitudes or discrimination against someone based on a distinguishing characteristic such as a mental illness, health condition, or disability.
When my family member returned home, they were glad to be home and going back to a routine of socializing, meeting up with friends. Returning back to charity work, their social club. The best thing for anyone after an intervention and a long stay in an inpatient clinic is to get back into the routine they had before there Mental Health issue. Except for the rising ugly head of the Stigma of Mental Health. The family member soon discovered that those they counted as loyal friends, where not as loyal as they thought them to be. They hid from this family member, made up excuses why they couldn’t go out for lunch, even failed to come to the home of this family member for a social gathering. Leaving this family member standing at the door waiting and waiting for the doorbell to ring. Then this family member learned that one of her best friends was telling the other best friends that this family member was crazy, mentally unstable and violent tried to kill someone. Avoid them at all cost, it is contagious. All miss information brought on by the misconception that a person with Mental Illness is someone you had to avoid at all cost.”
“Society at large see’s Mental Illness as something you can catch like a common cold. Or that the person is or can be violent to others, even when that person is dealing with just low-self-esteem. Mental Illness is seen like a one size fits all robe you wear with the name embroidered on it Mental Illness for All sizes. Mental Illness is not one size fits all. People with mental illness are discriminated against because society see it as one size fits all. When in reality it is not. A common cold is an ordinary fact of life you can survive. You can survive open heart surgery or live with diabetes. Yes, some Mental Disorders are undetectable by the naked eye, while others are very obvious. You never know if a person setting next to you in a movie theater is depressed or suffering from anxiety, or schizoid and on medications that allows a person to function normally in the community. But as soon as they tell you they are dealing with mental health issues, you back off, and run. The really sad part is that the family members extended family are not immune to the Stigma of Mental Health. One can survive the rejection of a friend or social circle, but when a parent, sibling, or child rejects you. You are alone to slip away into a world of loneliness. When the extended family accepts your situation, with love and understanding you don’t need those friends or social circle who rejected you because of their ignorance, and yes when you even reveal the intimate details to them, and they still reject you. You don’t need those who reject you. In some situations, it is that friend or social circle that gave you the drug in the first place that led you to drinking and you needed intervention by the ones who truly love you. I love you mother.” The audio ends, the teen puts the essay away and walks off the stage. Lights out transition to final scene 6, where we hear a Saxophone player playing a melody of smooth jazz on the cabin porch in shadow, the sax mournful sounds echoing into the night air. From off stage center right a teen walks onto the stage to down stage right, carrying a high stool where he sets it down and sits upon it in shadow.
***
“I remember as early an age of 13, when my voice started cracking and changing. My body showing the early stages of puberty. Like any boy of that age, their thoughts are changing about girls from girls being pest to girls being something else. At that age boys begin to talk about girls and how they suddenly become interesting to them, and such thoughts awaken an arousal in them that confuse them at first and as they age another year. That confusion gets worse, then another year passes and that confuses clears up as to why they are thinking such thoughts and where such thoughts can lead them, eventually to dating and cold showers. When I was 14, I began to think less of girls and more of boys and had just as many cold showers. Between feeling weird that I would think of boys and be aroused. I thought of how wrong it was to think of boys instead of girls in that way. I was taught that when we reach an age of 14 or more we think of girls, romance, and love. We look out our parents and see what that all entails.”
We began to understand that there are different kinds of love. The love we have for our parents, our grandparents, siblings. Then there is the love we have for our best friend, a different kind of love. We learn that one day we will meet a girl that instills in us another kind of love that leads to marriage and having a family, loving your children. The ancient Greeks had four kinds of love in their culture, Eros romantic love, Phileo Love enjoyment, fondness, friendship. Storay love family loyalty and Agape unconditional love. Agape love is sacrificial love. This is the most noble and powerful type of love because it is an act of the will. Phileo love refers to brotherly love and is most often exhibited in a close friendship, where best friends will display this generous and affectionate love for each other without being weird. Eros is a passionate and physical desire. Storay love is natural, unforced, familial love; a great example of Storay love is the love what a parent has for a child.”
“Romantic love leads to passionate and physical sexual desires it is the other side of the coin of having a heterosexual relationship and where Agape love brings two people together. Phileo is the love you have for a best friend, brotherly love for a friend of the same sex. Where Storay, as it is pronounced from the Greek word, is where when we become a parent, it is a natural, unforced love for a child. Four types of love, and in a heterosexual relationship there is an element of Eros, Agape, and Storay that make up the relationship within marriage and parenthood. Phileo is another coin with two sides to it. The brotherly love we have for our best friend of the same sex without the passionate and physical desires of Eros love. The other side of that coin is where we find we have those passionate and physical desires of Eros love for the same sex. Like a Hetero relationship, this side of Phileo love has Agape love that brings two people together of the same sex who desire to have the same elements of all four loves as a couple.
“At 14 I didn’t know these four kinds of love. I did not need to know this to know how I was feeling toward the same sex. I had my first experience with the Eros side of that coin at 14, by 15 I was experiencing the other side of the Eros coin, Agape, by 17 I was experiencing the four elements of love in a relationship that was no different than a hetero relationship at that age. Except in a hetero relationship, you announce to your family and peers you are in love with a girl. Bring the girl home for dinner, meet the girl’s parents. Take the girl to the prom and if the relationship is built on a good foundation you marry the girl. At age 14 I was ashamed of what I was feeling. How do you tell a parent how you are feeling? How do you tell your best friend how you are feeling when that best friend is as straight as it gets? It didn’t change at 15, nor 16, nor 17 or 18, except by 17, I was no longer ashamed of how I was feeling about boys. I still didn’t shout it out on the hill tops I was a gay teen and in love with a gay teen. Nor did I come out to my parents. Nor did my partner come out to his parents. That didn’t change the fact we loved each other with unconditional love. We enjoyed our companionship, and fondness for each other that led to the four elements of love. We share what kind of future we want to have, college, career, and yes children. Storay love to complete the circle of love. Every moment I am not with him, my heart aches, I fear for him, I worry, the kind of worry that is Agape and Phileo and Eros. I know he also worries for me, and he feels the same kind of love. It is true that absents makes the heart grow wonder. We can’t wait until we are together 24/7, and yes we still need to know more about each other than the birthmark on his back and I don’t like Spinach.”
“At age 14 it felt weird and wrong, and I will me honest, it should have been disgusting to think of boys that way. I had no choice as my emotions and physical body was aroused at the ideal of loving a boy. If I had a choice I would have taken a different path that society says I must take. I could have taken a path of suicide as many at that age do. What boy at age 14 really knows what is the right path to take when it is preached in literature, movies, in the home that being gay is wrong, perversion, a sickness, freakish, a sin? In Ancient Greek culture they saw being gay as normal or why would they have four kinds of love. No matter how ancient Greek culture is portrayed in the annuals of history, where the authors of those annuals were censored by todays edited versions of Greek culture. Being gay was a lifestyle just as normal as having a hetero lifestyle in Ancient Greek culture. No amount of gay conversion therapy, or any pill they might give you to make you straight is going to change that fact, that our hormonal and genetic make-up is what makes us what we are. It is not the love we have for a same sex peer, but the image of what goes on under the sheets that repulse society. A society of prudes, bigots, and ignorance. We are not a threat to your lifestyle so stop being a threat to ours. We have the same kind of love you have and feel and yes we have sexual desires for each other, we want marriage, a career, a family, grandchildren just like you. We are your sons, your daughters, your neighbor. We are not a disposable commodity you can throw out into the trash or sent to a conversation camp. What would this world be like if the table was turned on you, and you being hetero was a sin. Inclusiveness is equality for all not just for a few by a few. For all mankind regardless of gender, color of skin, choice of lifestyle or a lifestyle that is chosen for us at the time of our conception. Do I not bleed the same blood, cry the same tears when you piece my heart with your hatred, your ignorance, your bigotry? Do I not have the same terrible horrors of life as you do?”
The saxophone player silences his Sax, steps off the porch and joins the other teen. Lights come up enough to reveal the two teens in a passionate kiss, arms around each other and walking off the stage there backs to the audience. There is a profound silence in the audience, then a solidarity clap, then joined by another, then another, then the whole audience is standing and clapping. The is no whistles or shouts, just a thunderous applause of respect. There is no curtain call. The curtain closes on the dark set, and the house lights come up to full. The audience linger in small groups whispering and congratulating Mrs. Trembly the Social Studies teacher, the Superintendent, school board members. The principal and Mr. Montgomery the assistant principal, Mr. and Mrs. George Anderson. Some senior peers look at each other with that look in their eyes that say, ‘I have seen the light.’ While others come to terms in understanding what inclusiveness really means, and a few remain sceptics. In time the audience moves on, out of the auditorium, and leave the building to their homes. When all is quiet, the lights on the stage come up, and the crew and cast tear down the cabin, the scenery, and lower the moon to be removed off its cables, two junior high students are seen helping out. The light set up is left as it is, for the next light crew and production to deal with. With the last prop removed and stored. A solitary pole lamp is placed on the stage and lit and the lights on the stage are turned off. Cast and crew exit out the back-stage door. No makeup or costume to remove. The only sound is the sax playing among the group, as a solemn goodbye to the horrible terrors of life. Hope is like a well water seed in fertile soil, it grows to mature into a mighty Oak, spreading its branches of inclusiveness over everyone.
The Terrible Horrors of Life, Ebook in its entirety, can be found at Smashwords.com published under my Penname of Rowlen Delaware Vanderstone III.
