It was 1989.
The little boy stood before a full and silent classroom.
Everybody was staring at him open mouthed. He saw Bobby Gibson sitting at the back of the room, grinding his fist into his palm and cracking his knuckles. The Bully shook his head slowly. I'm gonna get you later. The little boy looked away, trying to blink away the embarrassment and stop thinking about those fearsome eyes, about the pain they promised.
Young Miss Hollinshead had her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. The air was heavy with unspoken questions, jealousy, amusement, embarrassment. The little boy turned back to the blackboard, which was covered in numbers and Greek letters and meaningless squiggles. A second ago it had all made sense. But while he was talking, an unbearable wave of emotions had come over him and now it meant as much to him as to anyone else in the room. He tried to read the numbers again, but with each snigger from behind him a jagged flash of light scythed across his vision, leaving traces across his eyelids and spearing painfully into his temples. His brain was overflowing with a terrible cocktail of derisive amusement and shame.
Leave, now. The voice cut through the mess, a stark white trail of words hanging in the air and the little boy ran out of the classroom, screaming his embarrassment to the empty corridors. A few curious faces appeared, poking out like gophers from the rooms along the hall, but they were quickly withdrawn when they realised who was causing the commotion.
The little boy cowered in a dusty old broom cupboard, hands clamped over his ears trying to shut out the laughter, which danced across his consciousness leaving rainbow spirals of neon light spinning deep into his brain. He remained like this for the rest of the afternoon, rocking and staring through tear-filled eyes at walls covered in the same strange markings.
This was a normal day.