Yeah, I have been stuck in “horror” mode for the past week or so. The other night I drug out my copy of Stephen King’s “Carrie” for a quick re-read. Damn. I had forgotten just how much I love this book. I think the story resonates with me is because it’s about the misfit’s ultimate revenge. Way back in high school, I was one of the picked on. We even had a guy that I would liken to Carrie White. Leslie was the butt of endless pranks and taunting. We rode the same bus to school and day in and day out it was the same thing over and over again. Guys making fun of him because he was overweight and bookish (and I mean this guy was really smart). Girls would flirt with him … get him all turned on and laugh and point if he happened to get an erection. I never took part in any of this. I just sat to the side and was very thankful that it wasn’t me in the hot seat. In the end, nothing ever happened. Leslie bore the humiliations, everyone graduated and moved on. I still think about all this when a school shooting makes the news because there was a potential time-bomb sitting on the bus with me every day for years. A couple of years after my ten year high school reunion I ran into one of my classmates who had not attended. He said that the reason he didn’t come was because (at some point during school) Leslie has said he would come to the reunion and make us all sorry. He believed that Leslie was capable of that much rage. He believed that ten years later Leslie would come back and have revenge against his tormenters and the rest of us that stood by and did nothing … just like Carrie White in King’s novel.~