prompt: secret, title: sour grapes make the best whine in misc. flash fiction

My secret is that my borderline-obsequious over-abundance of humility is a defense mechanism.

Not self-defense, mind you, it’s there to protect everyone else. When I was a child, I was greedy and arrogant and cruel, pitching fits on K-Mart’s linoleum, screaming for He-Man toys. I reveled in my knacks for language and imagination, as paths to attention. If I humiliated grown-ups with the fact the five-year-old was more literate than they were, if I ripped apart some other kid with a heartless quip, that was all the more focus upon me. I dreamed of fortunes and fame, whenever I didn’t have the nightmares of dying in an atomic attack on Griffiss Airbase.

As I got older, it was my wrath toward those who laid tragedy and humiliations upon my family, jealousy over the fact the girls I coveted dated greasy dipshits, just because they could manage to mangle three chords on a gitbox. I was so very clever and so very angry. My struggle hasn’t been creative, it has been ethical, trying to learn how to not be like that. These difficult decades trying to learn empathy understanding and kindness. Sometimes people are confused by the fact that the scribblings of mine I most quickly dismiss are often, on the surface, the funniest. Truth is, being funny, for me, is simple as breathing. A parlor trick. I’m a rather large and somewhat-intelligent man, it’s easy for me to hurt folks just with my presence, on accident, and astonishing easy if on purpose. But I’ve experienced sadness in my time and it left me with the desire that no one else ever feels as awful as I did, ever again. So, I’ve learned to constrain myself, try to be smaller, try to not just be funny, try to first and foremost be kind. It’s an everyday workout. putting in reps to build muscle. At best, I’m an overactive imagination trying like hell to cultivate a conscience. I do not enjoy recollecting who I am at my worst. That guy’s a real asshole.

I prattle on how Hollywood ripped out my heart but, honestly, it’s that it didn’t rip out my soul. I could’ve succeeded ten different ways but I would’ve had to be cruel or selfish to get there, and my subconscious fucked that up for me every time. Instead, with each colossal failure, I learned better how to be decent, and I intend to continue botching my life in manners that reach me more empathy to my last breath. Still, I do like the idea of having a comfortable back-half of my life, provided I can manage to achieve it without hurting anyone. It’s my lingering weakness.

Someday I’ll have to shed these Harrison Bergeron chains of depleted value and see if I learned enough to be a good man without self-inflicted constraint. It’s a secret this world still holds away from me and I admit I’m afraid to learn the answer. But I reckon I’ll find out soon enough.