There were dangers of being one of the the few wang-ddas in one of the most reknowned school in the country.

 

Wang-dda – the word still sends shivers down my spine.

 

It's a brand, as distinct and blatant as a tattoo on your face; an ugly mark branded onto you with a red hot poker, casting you into the embers of - What's the word?

 

Isolation? Too mild.

 

Social Quarantine? Cliché.

 

Sequestration? Too grand.

 

Ah yes, alienation.

 

You may call me a whiner, a typical teen, not even close to being out there in the real world – but trust me, when you're a wang-dda, you get all you need in a mere institution – in fact, any institution.

 

Wang-dda. What does it mean? Like I mentioned, it's a cold term embedded onto our foreheads like serial numbers on a prisoner's chest, like a dark ribbon tied at the shoulder of a Juwe in Nazi grounds, like numbered chains latched onto the limbs of the afterlife. It didn't matter what you did, where you went, or how far you travel, once a wang-dda, always a wang-dda. It's a name for the loner, more than avoided, worth less than a bully-magnet. They don't even touch you; they steer clear away from you as though you're an outbreak contagion, the slightest brush of a shoulder would evoke a temper, and the hint of conversation sparks would be brushed aside blatantly.

 

A wang-dda is the student at the back of the class, seemingly normal like any other, but at the same time, sticks out like a sore thumb. He's mostly quiet, invincible, with pitiful self-esteem and confidence. The most intelligent question he inquires a teacher is smirked on by others, not because of the subject, but because he had the cheek to even ask. He walks with his face looking downwards, a small, forelorn figure in the packed corridors – and the very ground he walks on in sterilised by reproachful stares.

 

You may call it unjustifiable, unwarranted, tyrannical, demoniac, and most of all, ridiculous. Call it whatever you want, you're just a sympathizer, you're reading this from the other side of the screen. You're living your life as a normal student, you have friends, you have teachers who care, you have people who look at you straight in the eye and the thought of flinching never even crosses their minds. You have a fair chance with your crushes, your first loves; he or she may return it, or they may not. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know you exist, or likes someone else. Being a wang-dda meant that everytime you walked past your love interest, you just wish that the ground will swallow you up, and wish that he didn't know you.

 

You think you're angry, you're angsty, you're more mature and cooler because you listen to Lana del Rey, or Eminem and you relate to their wrath and pain. You think you have swag, you think you're 'emo' because you're lonely. You think you're useless, you think you're different.

 

You don't know what different is.

 

You can laugh and say that I'm exaggerating, that I'm adding fuel to my own fire, that I'm one of those skinny blackheads with smears of eyeliner over their eyes, and black clothes. You can think of me as one of the people with blades as their best friends, you can say that I'm like Dominik in the Suicide Room movie, you can say that I'm trying to be unique.

 

I'm real flattered, but I don't need makeup and clothes to look black.

 

Figuratively speaking, I could dress up as an omelet, and yet people will still see a black cloud circulating me.

 

You think this is funny?

 

I'll show you what funny is.

 

Come closer, don't look so wary.

 

I'm just a wang-dda.

 

Right?

 

- Entangled - 

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