The Oppressed Oppressor, the Mind of a Teenage Bully

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He hit the younger boy on his shoulders, making the boy's books scatter and fall to the ground.

"Hey, watch where you're going, little man!", he mocked as the boy bent down to pick up his books.

"You hit me", the boy mumbled under his breath angrily.

"What did you say?", he asked looking down at the boy angrily and placing his left foot on the boys hand. He'd heard what the boy said and was hoping the boy would repeat it. That would of course earn the boy the worst beating of his life as well as give him something to smile about.

"I'm sorry, Tobi", the boy whinced in pain.

"You had better be", he smiled, and kicked the boy's books farther away with his legs, feeling a bit sad he didn't get a chance to beat the boy the way he would have loved to.

Tobi rubbed his palms on his face with his palms to clean the beads of sweat forming on his scary black face. He was a bully and probably the most feared boy here in his secondary school. Not only for his scary face and aggresive behaviour but also his huge figure which made it easier for him to pick on most of the boys who were smaller than him. Funny enough, his behaviour and lack of fear made even the older and bigger boys somewhat afraid of him. Though he bullied others lot, it wasn't really like he enjoyed picking on them. But in a way, it made him feel a lot better about himself. It was simply his means of escaping his life's troubles.

Tobi had gone through and went through a lot on a daily basis. His Dad had died while he was just four years. He scarcely had a recollection of the man but his Mum had only good things to say about him. Despite her supposed love for her husband, she got married to his 'best friend' less than a year after his death. Tobi didn't quite remember how things had started out but he knew that the first few years had been good until he started having siblings.

Mathew (Tobi's stepfather) quickly became abusive to Tobi after he (Mathew) got his own kids. He was in no way a kind man to Tobi, always beating him and favouring his own kids over him whether they were right or not. His mum did little or nothing to help Tobi's plight. She was equally as scared of him because he beats her too. Mathew could tell that she wanted out of the relationship but she was too scared to leave the man for fear of what he could do.

Unable to stand up to the oppressor of both he and his mother, he had resorted to simply lashing out his pain and anger on others. So far, it had been working well for him.

---

Tobi headed home that sunny afternoon on a red bicycle. Of course, the bicycle wasn't his. He had "borrowed" it forcefully from some weak boy in school. As he parked the bicycle in front of the house, he could hear his mum crying and Matthew shouting at her. He was probably beating her again. The beatings were getting more frequent recently Furious, Tobi ran at top speed into the house.

"Leave her alone", he shouted at Matthew, bursting through the door.

"Are you stupid?" Matthew asked angrily "Come on, go into your room or you'll get some beating of your own!"

"Obey your stepfather", Tobi's mum said weakly.

Tobi dashed into his room feeling incapacitated and Matthew resumed beating his mum. Tobi kept pacing back and forth and brewing with annoyance. After minutes of listening to his mother cry on and on, he felt he couldn't take it any longer. Quickly, he headed towards his bed, stuck his hand under his pillow, grabbed something and ran back downstairs.

"I SAID LEAVE HER ALONE!!", he yelled at Matthew.

Matthew, infuriated, walked towards Tobi and landed a slap on his face.

"Silly boy!", he spat.

Tobi remained on the same spot as his hands went straight into his pockets and removed a pocketknife. After that, the stabs and blows kept going into Matthew until he lay dead cold on the floor.

Hours later, the Detectives listened with awe and pity as the young boy, Tobi, narrated the story of how he had killed his stepfather. This was a tale of someone pushed to the wall until he was helpless and had to react. But in the end, a crime was still a crime and Tobi would have to serve his time.

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_{Where there is darkness, I'll shine the light.}