The Coward

I've been a coward for just about as long as I can think. I wasn't born a coward, who is born anything? I was born a baby and so were most people. I suppose not most people are still babies at my age. My mummy and daddy aren't really important in this story because it was anger that made me, anger not as an abstract but as a person. And I never really understand anger as an abstract, I got and still get angry but I try to do what my mummy says and take a deep breath and bottle it up, though I don't know why we say 'bottle it up' because that suggests I'm going to use all this anger for something but I can't honestly think what I'd ever use it for.

Anger was always angry as you'd expect and he would scream and shout and throw things and hit me sometimes. I'm not quite sure why he thought that being angry would make something better because it only make things worse, you can't really act rationally angry, if you're angry at something else then you'll be really angry at little things like cleaning the dishes or not being able to find the remote. Most people would respond to anger by being angry, even angrier at them, then the angry person would get angrier still. Now to me that's more anger than you need so I never got angry and kept doing what my mammy kept saying. So I became a coward instead. Anger doesn't like cowards but then anger doesn't like anyone, maybe that's because he's angry or he's angry because he doesn't like anyone, one of those. Anger hits me for being a coward and gets more angry so I suppose I haven't done anything on my part.

If I wasn't a coward I would be the joker. Now the joker scares me because he doesn't care about anything, he can't take things seriously he just tells jokes. And everybody else is scared of the joker. But that's what you get for not getting angry: you become a coward or you become a joker. Just for doing what your mamma told you. I can't say I understand it. But as far as I can see I will always be a coward, and maybe sometimes I will be the joker but I hope not often. It's a sad little prospect and anger would never change because like I said he hates people and he would never be able to connect with them. I don't hate people though.

and I suppose that's why I will always beat anger in a way.