By Kirsten Nicole
July 14, 2023
I wrote this for a Short Story class in college. While it might not be extremely uplifting, I do hope that you notice the unique gift this character possesses...which he dismisses. Sometimes we just need a little encouragement from someone else about the unique talents and abilities the Lord has given us. Who can you encourage today?
I am an ordinary kid. Seriously. I’m not short or tall. I have a size ten shoe and no braces, but not perfect teeth either. I get Bs and Cs in school, because I don’t pay attention and I get bored, a common problem for kids in high school. My best drawings are stick people, and my papers are what my teachers call “good enough.” I’m decent at math, but every kid has that one subject that isn’t as hard. I’m at the bottom of the food chain. Freshman. Sure, I’ve gotten slammed into a locker or two by a senior proving their status, but not enough times to say I’m a victim of bullying or anything like that. If I were, I’d have something special that people noticed, or maybe something not special. Least I wouldn’t be average.
My brother is older than me. There’s just two of us. Plus the dog. Who’s younger than I am. Mom says the dog equals 0.4 percent of a kid. Two point four is the standard number of kids in an American family, if you didn’t know.
I remember dumb stuff like that.
My dad’s a mechanic and my mom works the night shift as a bagger at Wal-Mart, and we all live in the suburbs as a mostly happy family, but you know, nothing super. We still have plenty of fights. No one in my family’s ever gotten arrested because of them though. Just normal fights. Like, I didn’t do my homework and my brother forgot to put the little, blue and red detergent package in the dishwasher.
I remember dumb stuff like that.
I can’t carry a tune to save my life, literally. Oh, and my hair is brown, and my eyes match, which is one of the most ordinary colors on earth. The color of dirt. My mom calls it chocolate, but that’s because she’s always thinking about chocolate. Particularly Ghirardelli chocolate with raspberry filling. It comes with the purple stripe on it.
I remember dumb stuff like that.
I don’t know. Sometimes it’s nice being average. Sometimes it’s nice to know the stupid stuff you do’ll be forgotten.
Like when I got in a discussion with my art teacher about truth in art. I don’t remember what she said. But she was wearing a necklace with a tiny lantern on the end of it, and the third nail on her left hand was chipped. She gets a manicure every twelve days. And I remember the looks on the other kid’s faces. Half of ‘em with their heads in their arms, the other half glaring at me for talking about stuff that doesn’t make any difference.
They’ll forget about me tomorrow. And that’s kind of nice.
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