Lay it, lay it down, let me see your hand
Show me all the blood
You're always cheating, but we are not playing
It doesn’t make you God

What I find funny and annoying as hell about life is how bipolar it can be at time. One day, you are here, minding your own business and people come poking you to pull you out of it, and then, the next thing you know, you are on everybody’s radar, being blamed to have walked in their world, even though they were the one who put you there, in first place.

As a matter of fact, my compelled coming out had more impact on people than I expected. Needless to say, being queer in place like Magdad isn’t really hitting the top three of the most dangerous life habits. Yet, it still isn’t a topic to brag about, apparently. Not, that it was my intention. But some interprets things the way that fits the best their mind and sadly, we, humans, are conditioned to default our interpretation to “threat” inputs.

There is a general mentality, borderline primitive, inherently running around, ingrained by gangs’ activism and probably by some religious resurgence, that tends to push us to divide in order to feel secure and to entrust our survival success in our ability to conform or erase what isn’t us; or what we think can destroy us. Which is apparently everything for some.

In this world, there are those who embrace their flawed and wicked self, and those who can’t bare the idea they aren’t perfect, and hate the first group for being able to do what they can’t because it is easier than having a good look into the mirror. And in-between, stands a wide range of poor souls that struggle to understand what they are and can do. That is when “normality” came in the process: to reassure those who hesitate, to mask those who deny and punish those who don’t give a damn.

I was standing among the latter, to people's dislike. Nobody asked them to look into my direction. I certainly didn't. The goal of my reply wasn't to get them closer, but off my back. Yes, I was looking for a choc value. But I wasn't trying to prove anything. Because the whole matter was trivial and irrelevant. It wasn't important.

My orientation wasn’t going to change anything. It wouldn’t make the world blow up or suddenly shift its magnetic poles, though that could have been funny. So knowing the truth about me, technically had no repercussion on the universe: Magdad was still an illogical monster yesterday, and it would still be like that, with or without me liking any type of living forms.

And yet, to some, it was like their mind had suddenly been violated. It is amazing how sex still rules people’s life; even when it really isn’t their bloody business.

It took me a few day to notice the changes. Well, it would have been hard to ignore it, as the word “Fagot” was carved on my school desk. Truth, there may have been ulterior signs waving at me like a kid holding colorful balloons, but I wasn’t paying attention enough to have them pass my twaddle filters.

People quieting when I was passing by or purposely ignoring me wasn’t just my usual, it was an art that I had carefully crafted for years. I have been intentionally trying to achieve that goal since I decided it would be better to distance myself with any type of troubles. So I was certainly not going to become wary of it when it actually started working, was I?

Honestly, had they decided to treat me as a leper they couldn’t approach, it would have just been perfect. Yet, I guess, that would have been upsetting in the end, if on top of my "disturbance", I would have gain the peace I was looking for. Therefore, since ignoring me wasn’t making me miserable nor grabbing my attention, their attempt of communication eventually turned into an archaic word etched on the surface of my already busted desk.

I found it like that, one afternoon after lunch break. I entered the class that was surprisingly more packed than usual and noticed the damage when I dropped my bag on my chair. The running noise of excitement that was filling the air when I came in, vanished as I was looking at it, certainly in suspense of what my reaction was going to be.

But I wasn’t feeling anything. I just looked at it, my brain unable to compute the grotesque of the situation, bugged by a detail I was trying to put my nail on. It wasn’t the number of people behind me waiting to see if I would be hurt or ashamed or angry… It wasn’t the obvious rage used to carve the insult in the wood, as if the culprit was afraid the word would disappear. No, it was something stupid. Something that was making me itch for a laugh. Then my brain clicked.

I opened my bag, looking for a marker and added the missing G to that misspelled attempt of intimidation, with a little arrow to even point out where it should have gone. "Much better!"

To say I didn’t give a hoot about what they thought of me, would be repeating myself at this point. Yes, I had as much worry about their actions as my grandmother had love for me.

The days passed and more of those attempts made their way in my daily life, but still unsuccessful in triggering anything on my side. I wouldn’t go after whoever was doing that and had so much issue to deal with that they had to focus all their energy on my case. From where I stood, trying to investigate it and make it stop was a waste of mine. It wasn’t bothering me. Just making my eyes rolled, at best.

I know: adolescence is a contentious period in our life, before adulthood take us for ride in a cruiser tank, blowing up in the process all this puberty hassles. It was all tomfooleries in the end. Immature and only bothering in its repetition. Sometimes it was someone bumping into me, giving me a smirk to make it clear it had been on purpose. There has been the blue paint in my sport bag to ruin my clothes, the dicks draw on my room door or the garbage stuffed inside my bed while I was on cleaning duty. From my shampoo mixed up with oil to my shoes left into the toilets, all I was wondering was how kids growing up in Magdad could lack so much of imagination.

Did I like it? Of course not. But seeing the place I was living in and the things I have experienced so far, I honestly felt like being on a merry-go-round.

Yes, it was annoying. So are mosquitos. They buzz in your ears, distract you for a minute, leaving you two choices: you crush them or you accept the bite. But in the end, it isn’t much of a threat, just another itching spot on your skin, like humans have throughout their life. Quickly come, quickly gone. Especially if you don’t stress trying to go after it. I choose the bite, because it was less tiring that going on a hunt.

None of it was really alarming, not even the nails in my food and broken glass shards inside my desk. I established that the less I would allow my time on it, the less it would impact me. It wasn’t about enduring it and letting it slide on me until the storm was gone. There was no storm to begin with, in my opinion. It took it as it was: kids’ temper tantrum. Infantile jokes. I laugh it off and it went away. The pranks, the desperate efforts to remind me I was disturbing their already messed up world. It flitted around for a few weeks, and I supposed, they got bored. Or it just became so insignificant and repetitive that I didn’t bother noticing anymore.

But I was right. It wasn’t a storm. This was simply the little tap of the baton before the grand orchestral opening. The celebration and dressing up of guinea pigs before them being skinned and shish-kebabed. The unnoticeable quiet before Hell pours its fire on you.

The silence broke a month after, just before summer break. As the finals were coming soon, more students were showing up, to catch up what they had missed or because their families were dragging them in by the collar.

Our teacher, enjoying to have an audience, was going on about the Great Exodus, and how we “heroically” abandoned Earth in hope to save our civilization. Magdad was born from the ashes of the last war, in this new world we set foot on, like a metastasis.

In its prime time, Magdad was rivaling Tarramine’s booming economy, without much of a sweat. There was need to build, work to do and babies to make. Then because life is never steady, it changed. People became greedy and took bad decisions. After seeing a pick of criminality rising in the overly opened Tarramine, Magdad decided they wouldn’t follow its path and repeated the exact same stupidities our ancestors did in the past. It is almost like if humans never learn from their history. Doors got closed, trades went away, and roads shut down for good.

Cut the blood from reaching an organ, and it dies out. Tarramine survived and bloomed; Magdad turned into a zombie.

Now, the city had surrendered to its underground legislation, gangs coming one after another, rising and replacing the older ones, until they became themselves obsolete on the market and wiped out by another smarter, greedier and more violent group. At that moment, the most powerful one was the Seagulls’ gang. Leaded by a guy named Manuel, they had under their “protection” half of the city, leaving the other half to smaller gangs they had trading pacts with. The Seagulls had been the longest gang in power in Magdad history... Until the Blues.

Nobody knew where they came from, nor who was managing them. They had their own rules, their own ways, their own goals. And they weren’t here to make trades with others gangs. I wasn’t really familiar with them. But as I grew up, their actions managed somehow to put the Seagulls in a really unfriendly mood.

Tensions were building up; provocations and confrontations multiplied. Gunpowder had been spread on the ground over the years, and it was a given that a sparkle would soon set fire on all of it. Each side were preying on the youth, more malleable, more confused, and more easily replaceable too. Eager to find a place in this chaotic word? Easier to indoctrinate.

I learned to understand what the black seagull tattoo meant to their member. You embraced the force or you remained a side player. But the moment you were marked, there was no way out.

Once in a while, people would disappear, some reappearing with the black bird inked on their back. And for those who weren’t coming back, the Blues were the prime suspect. It was a strange selection spectacle. You would look at the person sitting next to you and somehow wondered which groups would come for them in the end, without being able to get your answer. We all were their target, their “hope” soldiers, and all lost enough to believe in the gingerbread house.

I ended up losing track of the teacher’s monologue, and had my eyes wander in the classroom, thinking of how much efforts our ancestors put into making sure we made it to result in this sad outcome. Had they known in advance that we basically repeated their mistake, would they had proceeded in saving us or saved themselves the stress and quit. I smiled.

In the corner of the classroom, sitting on the last row, Dorothy was playing on her phone. She had her hair up and was wearing a baggy. She wasn’t really a fashion nuts, I had noticed. Most of her clothes were either unisex or borrowed from her brothers’ wardrobe. Probably because she didn’t need much to attract attention. Next to her, her friend was doing her nails. Sitting at the front row, two boys were trying to take notes, one visibly giving in to a pre-lunch nap. That was when we heard the noise.

It came from somewhere in the school and had us stopped everything we were doing to look at the door. You don’t live in Magdad without knowing what that noise was. That is among the first thing you learn to recognize here if you have a minimum of survival instinct.

We waited, all our senses in high alert. The school was suddenly so silent we could hear each other’s breathing and racing hearts. At that very moment, we were all in tune with our reactions: barely daring looking away from the door to check on each other, afraid it would be the end if we did. We were still in the room but our mind was inertly mapping the building, trying to calculate the origin of the noise, and how far from us it was. Somehow, I think we were still trying to convince us we had dreamed it.

But it happened again, and there was no more doubt left. Someone was firing a gun in the school. We heard another gunshot, then a scream. 

The nightmare started after that.

Cursing, our teacher ran to the door to lock it from the inside. Then he ordered us to escape by the window while pushing his desk against the entrance to reinforce it.

Dorothy’s friend was the first to react, even though I was the closer from our exit road. She pushed me out of the way and worked on opening the window.

“They are sealed!” She yapped while the noise of gunshots were getting louder. The victims' voices were echoing in the building. The one running, the one begging. Pleas and cries and people fleeing, rising up through the floors as I was realizing there was more than one shooter.

My classmates were hitting urgently the glass, trying to break it when we felt and hear an explosion, probably in the great hall, triggering the fire extinguishers. At the end of our floor, gunshots were closing up.

“Move!” I shouted at the boys, grabbing a chair, completely drenched. With all my strength, I threw it in the window, breaking it partially but not enough to go through. Wrapping my hand into my jacket, I knocked off the remaining pieces left on the edges while Dorothy’s friend looked outside to see how high we were.

“Damn, it is high!” I looked down as well and saw other students escaping from the floor underneath us. We called them out and two adults came back to assist us. “Use the gutter on the right” I pointed to the girl while my teacher was helping her to climb out of the window.

But something was missing. I turned and saw Dorothy cornered at the opposite of the classroom, livid. Another explosion went off. I seized her and lifted her on the ledge, after the first boy had successfully landed on the bushes below us, with the others' assistance. Dorothy was still trying to reach the gutter, when a salvo coming from inside the first floor, stroke her helpers down, hitting her in the foot. I just had time to grab her before she fell.

Clutching on my arms, she held onto me, trying to reach out the wall with her viable leg. Pressing against the sill, I tried my best to bring her up, but the floor was becoming slippery due to the water and the broken glass was cutting my armpit. Eventually my teacher and my remaining classmate came to help us when suddenly, someone shoot into the door lock and busted it open.

Startled, I let go of Dorothy whose fall got broken by the bushes and bodies underneath her. But I didn’t have time to check on her. The shooter entered in our class. In two seconds, she gunned down everyone but me, with an efficiency that left me on my knees. She didn't even blink. She paused.

Then she turned to me.