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Anabasis: Text # 3

Text inspired by writer Patricia Ann McNair's daily journal prompt #3, And this is how they get you:

And this is how they get you: waiting for you to step off the bus after school, watching you from behind the fence that rings the potato fields, snowballs embedded with sharp stones in their hands, watching for the moment when the bus pulls away, and you walk a few yards along the grass next to the bus stop, looking for a break in the traffic (there isn’t much traffic at this hour on a dark winter afternoon), and as you cross the road, they appear over the top of the fence and start hurling the snowballs at you with pinpoint accuracy, the first one catching you on the back of the neck so hard that you feel the warm blood trickling out of the cut, the next few snowballs thudding against your coat as you duck, and stagger, and try to dodge the assault, managing to keep your head from being hit again, but only at the expense of your back, and your elbows, and your calves, which are bare because the Catholic school you attend forces boys to wear shorts, even in winter, and as you slip and nearly fall when you reach the other side of the road and the safety of the corner, you feel the stinging of stone and ice on the skin of your legs, and you begin to cry, cursing the local boys, and the school that makes you wear shorts even in winter.
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