Society
The difference between burning people at the stake, and school.
I’m going to tell you two short fictional stories based on true events, two stories which tell a much different story when you put them together, the first story taking place in the 1600s, and the second in the 2000s.
Story one: Fire
There was once a young girl called Prudence, she was an ordinary girl who lived in a small cottage with her mother and father. One night she snuck out to go explore the forest and returned home safely, the next day it turned into a rumor that she was seen leaving the woods close to dawn.
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After that it all went downhill from there, random events turned into accusations, normal things twisted into rumors. By the time she was only 10 years old, the word “witch” was spreading like wildfire, and then she was being questioned, and then she was being tortured, and then she was admitting to crimes she never committed.
Prudence had always loved the warm glow of a candle, the comfort of the light of a flame just bright enough to be mesmerizing but not quite blinding. When she was standing there, tied to a large wooden pole, in a pile of firewood, when she saw the small flame that began the fire, all she could think about was the irony.
Story two: Misery
There was once a girl named Emma, she was an ordinary girl who lived in a quiet neighborhood, in a small house, with her parents. She had just moved into that small house, in that quiet neighborhood, and was about to start her first day at the new school. Other girls weren’t really mean to her, they just didn’t really acknowledge her. Emma did end up becoming friends with James though, and that was when the other girls did acknowledge her.
They kept teasing Emma because she secretly liked him (she did not think it was that obvious), they kept telling her that she wasn’t good enough for him, that he could never love anyone so ugly, and more and more versions of that. By the time she was only 16 she knew how to hide tears, she knew how to lie like her life depended on it, she knew how to smile even when she was dead inside. One day James left, he said he couldn’t handle the rumors anymore, that they couldn’t be friends anymore. And just like that, the one thing that made her smile a real smile, was gone.
Emma had always loved the water; the sound, the smell, the feeling of the water on her skin. She had always loved the way the water muffled everything, how it was like a blanket that made the rest of the world go away. When she was sinking into the water for the last time, all she could think about was the irony.
