Eight Short

Once upon a time, there lived a quaint little town where everyone was the same.

They sounded the same.

They thought the same.

They even looked the same.

All walked around with triangular-shaped bodies and three arms—one for each side, ten narrow eyes at their base, a tiny nose at their tip, and two sets of lips in-between.

They all did the same things—they had the same hobbies and interests.

They worked at the same few jobs.

And even had the same eating and sleeping schedule.

Every single one.

Except for Jayzur.

Jayzur was different.

While everyone else in this little town spoke with a screeching high pitch and in a rapid pace, Jayzur’s voice was deep, methodical, and slow—even though he was only eight years old.

When all the other kids on the playground wanted to play tag, Jayzur wanted to play catch.

When they would stare off at the town trees and say, “Oh wow, look at those blue leaves,” Jayzur would say, “What do you mean? Those leaves are yellow.”

But what stood out the most among his differences was how Jayzur looked compared to everybody else.

He didn’t have a triangular-shaped body with three arms and a tiny nose at the top.

He didn’t have 10 narrow eye balls or two mouths.

Jayzur was circle-shaped and had only two eyes—both big, round, and at the top of the circle—one pair of lips towards the bottom, and a single, regular-sized nose exactly in-between.

He had only two arms, on either side of his body, as well as a pair of legs below.

Jayzur was weird.

Jayzur was different.

And all the other kids at school and in his neighborhood at home would never let him forget it.

“Ugly eight-short, ugly eight-short,” they’d often tease, on the count of him being eight whole eyes short of their ten.

“We bet you can’t see us, we bet you can’t see us!!” they’d regularly taunt. “Clearly you can’t because how do you see a yellow leaf when we see blue?!”

And Jayzur would just stand there, his head lowered, feeling all the shame, humiliation, and loneliness of being different.

Of being weird.

Somehow, he was even different from his parents—who were the same as everyone else.

Jayzur hated it. He hated being so different from literally everyone else in this little town.

“Why can’t I just be like everyone else?!” he’d often question. “Why me? Why only me!?”

Jayzur did have one friend.

And only one friend.

Her name was Malaia, and—despite looking, sounding, and mostly thinking like everyone else—she seemed to be less-bothered by his profound differences than everyone else.

And in fact, she seemed even fond of them.

“Jay, I like that you’re different,” she’d often say. “There are words you say that we don’t say, thoughts you think that we don’t think, and things you do that we don’t do. It’s actually kind of cool.”

“Oh you’re just saying that because you’re my friend,” he’d then often scoff. “And because you’re not different.”

“No, really! I think you’re cooler than you think. Definitely cooler than a lot of these cloned losers.”

Jayzur always found this very hard to believe since literally everyone else in town—even his own parents—would often say quite differently.

He felt so sad and alone. And like no one understood, not even Malaia.

“‘I’m cool,’” he mocked as he recalled his friend’s words later that afternoon during his walk home from school. “Easy for her to say—she’s just like everybody else! It’s no fun being the only different one. I really wish I could just be like everybody else!!”

“Hey!” someone shouted, seemingly out of the blue, just moments later.

Jayzur was used to be ignored unless he was being made fun of or unless it was Malaia, so he assumed the call wasn’t meant for him and just kept walking.

“Hey!!” the voice shouted again.

Jayzur briefly looked up and saw that the boy, walking in the opposite direction, actually was speaking to him.

“Oh, hey,” he nonchalantly replied and almost dropped his head again before doing a double-take.

His two big eyes grew bigger.

Standing before him was a circular shape with two big, round eyes, a regular-sized nose, one set of lips, and two pairs of arms and legs—just like him.

“Hey! How’s it going?!” the circle gleefully said, and Jayzur also noticed his voice was deep and slow—just like his.

“Um he—how—”

Despite his best effort, Jayzur found himself nearly incapable of speaking a full word.

“Are you okay?” the circle followed up.

“Umm… yeah?” Jayzur managed to blurt out.

“Well good! I’m glad to hear that!” The circle smiled and walked on.

Jayzur’s wide eyes followed him, implanted even as they crossed paths.

And then, although it seemed impossible, his eyes seemed to triple in size.

“Hey!

Hey!!

Hey!!!”

All around everywhere…were circular-shaped beings—who looked just like him.

The kids, the grown-ups.

Everyone looked like him.

“Wow, look at the yellow leaves!!” he heard one kid call out.

“Oh, yeah, wow!! So cool,” everyone else agreed.

“Hey!” someone called out to Jayzur. “You wanna play catch?”

Jayzur’s eyes lit up, but he still couldn’t find any useful words.

“Well? Do you?” they asked.

“Y—Yeah!!” he forced out his mouth with all he had.

“Great! Let’s go!!”

A barrage of circles cheerfully ran to Jayzur’s direction, and the throwing and catching began.

Jayzur couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

He couldn’t believe what he was doing—playing catch, which no one in his little town ever wanted to play.

They only ever wanted to play tag.

As the ball flew between him and dozens of others, he furiously rubbed his eyes and visually retraced his steps, trying to figure out what path he must’ve crossed to suddenly send him into such a surreal universe.

Am I dead?! He pondered to himself.

Am I dreaming?!?

But he also was afraid to question it too much because, after all:

This was like Heaven.

If I am dreaming, don’t wake me up.

As catch went on, Jayzur learned seeing the leaves the same color wasn’t the only thing beyond their voices and appearances they had in common.

There was so much they thought about that he thought about, so much they wondered that he wondered, so much of how they saw things that was how he saw things.

They even would say a lot of the same things—even at the same time!

It was like they literally had his brain!

And best of all, now that he wasn’t the different one—the weird one—no one ever made fun of him.

Jayzur even received countless compliments—especially about the way he looked.

“Wow, you are so handsome,” they said. “And so, so smart.”

“Just look at you… looking all cute!!” they went on.

“Cutie eyes, cutie eyes!!”

For days, Jayzur got what he’d always wanted.

Everyone looked how he looked.

Everyone sounded how he sounded.

Everyone thought how he thought.

So wrapped up in the delight of this great new world, it took a while to even occur to him that he that hadn’t known where his parents had gone.

If he were being honest, he didn’t too much care.

He was finally just like everybody else.

As a few days more passed on, it slowly began to occur to Jayzur that literally everything he thought, these other circles thought.

Literally everything he said, they said.

Literally everything he did or wanted to do, they did…or wanted to do.

Everything.

Literally everything.

He began to grow tired of playing catch every day.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he said to himself one day, “but… I actually kinda want to play tag today!”

So, he suggested that to the other circles.

And no surprise, their immediate response was, “I actually kinda want to play that, too!!”

And so they did, for days more…until Jayzur grew tired of that and suggested something else, which everyone again was instantly on-board with.

“Yes! Let’s play duck, duck, goose!”

“Yes! Let’s play baseball!”

“Yes! Let’s play cards.”

Anything Jayzur suggested, the group not only agreed with but it seemed like it was something they’d also wanted to do all along.

But never said it.

And one day, Jayzur called this out.

“I feel like I’m always the one making suggestions of things for us to do. Don’t you all have any ideas? Isn’t there anything you’d like to do that doesn’t come from me?!”

All the other circle-shaped kids looked around at each other, puzzled.

Then they said, “I feel like I’m always the one making suggestions of things for us to do. Don’t you all have any ideas? Isn’t there anything you’d like to do that doesn’t come from me?!”

Jayzur’s eyes enlarged again but differently, and his lips parted to an oval shape, as he took a step back.

He looked over at the yellow-colored leaves nearby and asked, “What color are those?”

“Why, yellow, of course!” They all answered in unison.

Jayzur’s eyes narrowed, a certain thought in mind. “But they’re purple.”

“Oh yeah! Purple!! They’re definitely purple,” they replied.

“No!” cried Jayzur as he backed up further from the group while they neared closer.

“‘No,’ what, Jayzur?!” they called out. “Are you okay?!”

“No, say something different,” he screamed. “Think something different.”

He thought back to Malaia—his good friend who, in the longtime lonely world of triangles to his circle, was mostly the same as everyone else but just different enough to somehow be okay with his difference.

How different her words seemed now.

Jay, I like that you’re different, she’d told him. There are words you say that we don’t say, thoughts you think that we don’t think, and things you do that we don’t do. It’s actually kind of cool.

I…was kind of cool.

“Exactly!” this group in front of him yelled back. “Think something different, say something different!!”

Suddenly, as Jayzur peered out at the large, endless sea of circular-shaped beings, he felt nauseous.

Everyone looking like him…

Sounding like him…

Thinking like him.

His whole life, it was all he’d ever wanted.

To not be different. And here he was, the same as everyone else.

And he was realizing it kind of sucked, too.

But in a different way.

A somehow worse way.

He yearned for a thought different from his own.

Even for a look different from his own.

As the other circles closed in, Jayzur broke out and ran in the opposite direction and for as long and as hard as he could.

“Ahhh,” he screamed. “I really wish everybody else could be different!!”

Suddenly, the slow, deep chorus of voices came to a defeaning halt.

“Ugly eye-short! Ugly eye-short!! What are you doin’?!” a fast, high-pitched voice called out—a voice which Jayzur never thought he would be so happy to hear.

He immediately stopped and turned around.

Now, in place of the sea of circles that was there just a moment ago was a much more familiar sea of three-armed triangles.

A bombardment of eyes and tiny noses.

Jayzur’s face lit up.

He let out a deep exhale before taking in an even deeper inhale.

And then he asked.

“What color are those leaves?”

“Uhh duh, blue,” they all smugly replied.

And Jayzur couldn’t be happier.