B
From birth, I was different from everyone else. Crooked, frail, with a face assembled from shards. Doctors shook their heads, and my mother looked at me with undisguised disgust. "You are a disgrace to the family," - those words burned my soul, leaving wounds that never healed. School became hell. Teasing, hurtful nicknames, shoves - all of it was my daily routine. Girls avoided me, and boys looked down on me with contempt. I was an outcast, a shadow, gliding along the walls. Youth brought no relief. Loneliness became my faithful companion. I withdrew into myself, embittered by the whole world. A world where beauty and strength are worshipped, where kindness and intelligence mean nothing. A dream warmed my soul. The dream of becoming an artist. I spent hours drawing, pouring all my pain, all my hurt into my paintings. I wanted to show the world the beauty that only I could see. But fate had other plans. My works were met with mockery and criticism. "You are worthless," they told me. "You will never amount to anything," simply because I am ugly. Anger settled in my heart. Anger at the world, at people, at myself. I wanted to scream, I wanted to hit, I wanted to destroy this world that was so unjust to me. I stood on the edge of the roof. The wind tousled my hair, and below, the city raged. One step - and it would all be over. Pain, hurt, anger - it would all be left behind. But this clownish world didn't even give me the courage to do it.
