Eszter Forvith
Life was good when I was little. The more I know about the world the more disgusted I feel. I want to change it all, but at the same time I want to disappear and not care about it at all. Go somewhere quiet, to a place isolated from the world, a place where time stopped ages ago. But I can’t do that, can I?
With my simple thinking I thought I could never understand how the world worked, how the governments led the countries or why everything worked the way it did. Nowadays I’m starting to question everything. As a child you would think that everyone had a good life, since there are no wars or epidemics, but that’s not the truth, and the more you find out, the more agitated you become to act and do something, but then you realize there is nothing you can do to change the rotten nature of this world.
It wasn’t long ago that I found out how the world actually works. Six months ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I had a fight with my parents, and I ran away. I wandered quite far from our house and encountered a place I had never seen before. There were small houses everywhere, but they were so ruined I didn’t think anyone lived there. The streets reeked with a disgusting smell I had never smelt before. I was quite taken aback when I saw a little kid running out of one of the houses. He was around ten years old, and he was really thin. I hesitated for a moment before calling out to him, but I was lost, and he seemed nice. “Hey little boy, can you tell me where I am?” I asked as I approached. He looked at me as horror ran through his face. I was surprised and wondered for a second if I had said something wrong, but then I noticed he wasn’t looking at me. Suddenly I heard a gunshot from behind my back, and the little boy dropped to the ground. I will never forget that sight as long as I live. My parents ran from behind my back and escorted me back to our car. They were talking the whole time, but I couldn’t hear a word they said except for one sentence. “Peasants like that deserve to be killed,” was what my mother said.
That night when I got home, I stole my dad’s computer. What did my mother mean by “peasants like that”? I had to find out. Not many people have the internet on their devices, but my dad does. I had to find out the truth, but I didn’t know I would regret it so much. From what I found out, there are apparently two classes of society: the upper level, which I figured I live in, and the other, lower, class, which works for us. This just wasn’t right. How can others see this and think this is all right? That night I stayed up studying everything I could, and I found out a lot. Massacres, slavery and many more crimes that we have committed against them. I wanted to forget about it all and just go to sleep, but I couldn’t. I must do something. Someone has to stand up for them; they are people just like us. If I can explain it to my friends and teachers and tell them what I saw, they will stand up for justice too. But would it really be that simple? I paused for a moment. There must be a reason behind these workings of our world, there must be a reasonable explanation why we do all these terrible things to them. No, there can be no excuse for this, this is horrible and needs to end, hate can’t solve anything. I pause again. But who am I to determine what’s right and wrong, there are a lot of people who are smarter than me, and they don’t say anything either, so why should I? I would just make a fool of myself. I should really sleep now. The next day I went to school and decided to tell my friends what I thought, but I didn’t. The same thing happened the day after that and the days following that. One afternoon when I went home, I snatched away my dad’s computer as usual and looked at the news. A revolution had broken out, someone had stood up for them, but it wasn’t me.