Old Friends, Old Flames, Old Enemies

I found my current husband via an internet search engine, and have reconnected with dozens of people that I'd either forgotten completely or always wondered about. Prodigy (in the old days), MySpace and Facebook have made fading into obscurity very difficult to do.

That's spiffy, until the monsters start showing up on your page. A few days ago, I picked up a cup of coffee and signed on to read the usual inane posts and twitters only to have my customary bemused smile replaced by a shocked and gaping maw. The "Anti-Christ" had left a post on my wall! My "Arch Nemesis," the "Monster-Under-My-Bed," the "Six-Headed Hydra" that had prowled the halls of my childhood with only one goal in mind. . . my complete and utter anihilation. A flush of foreboding that I hadn't experienced since graduating high school filled me like icewater and condensed on my face and neck in a thin film.

I was grateful that she hadn't posted a profile photo -- which had to be hideous beyond words after all these years, though her name could have been scrawled in gore and it wouldn't have had any more impact.

"What the Hell?" I'm sure I said it out loud.

The "Creature's" post hadn't even been directed at me, but to one of my new (old school) friends. It was written in English, which was a surprise coming from the Beast, who to my knowledge had only been in command of an obscure dialect of "Bitch-Whore-Bully-Beast," heretofore.

She had written, "I seen that movie! It was grate!"

I closed my mouth. It was dry and tasted like feet. I read the line again.

"I seen that movie! It was grate!"

Definitely English, though misspelled. Clearly evolution had taken place over the last thirty years. I signed off and stared at my monitor. My coffee was cold. There had been little ripples on the surface, and I realized that my hands were trembling.

It never ceases to amaze me just how sharp a memory can be. One after another, they followed me to the sink as I dumped my coffee. The Xs drawn over my breasts on a white blouse that I had to wear through crowded halls to the nurse's office where I borrowed a t-shirt. The spit balls that stung my face, arms, and back as the school bus drove past on my walk home. Having my books knocked out of my hands; being tripped in the halls, pushed up and down stairs. . . I shivered.

As silly as it sounds, I was still wincing at flashbacks two days later. It was much simpler to block her name from my account than to block it from my psyche.

And, some people wonder why kids go berserk and strike back at these Demons-In-Teen-Clothing?

Who would I have been if that witchwitha "b" had grown up in Norway instead of Silver Spring? Would I have married a man who controlled, belittled and abused me when I was 19? Would I have grown to like myself? Felt comfortable (as people say) in my own skin?

There are those who would want to exact revenge, and others who would demand an apology. I am content to build another addition to my (considerable) fortress and hope that "It" never sprouts fins and flukes and crosses the moat again.