Author: Kavya Pandey, Class VII B
The sun is a demon. An absolute, evil demon. No, don’t worry, he doesn’t commit crimes or eat people, he’s just a bully at the school I go to, Galaxia High. Oh! I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Earth. I am just four and a half billion years old. I’m also an ideal student. My assignments are always on time, I’m a straight A’s student and I’m the favorite of all the teachers. Being the youngest student in my class, I am the main target for most bullies. Every time I am in the corridors, I get bullied for my outfit, the mold–like green patches all over my blue body etc. I don’t usually get affected by all this, but when insults are constantly flung at you, they do take a toll on your happiness. I never dawdle about in the corridors, I try to get to my classroom as swiftly as possible. But, Sun seems to have teleportation powers and always seems to catch up with me. Whenever I am bullied, I try to stand up for myself. But being a timid and shy person, speaking to someone is really hard, let alone standing up for yourself. This is the story of how I blossomed into my current self.
My entire school revolves around Sun. He’s extremely popular, with people who would kill to be friends with him. (Not to be taken literally!!!) Sun has an extremely bad influence on anyone who becomes too close a friend of his. Take my classmate Mars for example. He used to be best buddies with Sun at some point. But then, he failed all his classes, letting down all the teachers who thought he had a bright future. Now, poor Pluto, he was too hostile to Sun and the whole school shunned him. I tried to be nice to him whenever I could, but ultimately he had to leave the school due to the oppressive behavior. I don’t try to be hostile to Sun, but I’m never too friendly with him. You can never know about his true character! Being at the perfect distance from Sun, I never have been in a bad situation due to him. (Except for when he bullies me) And therefore, my life has a perfect equilibrium.
One day, (as usual) Sun popped out of thin air in front of me. I tried to ignore him and walk away but Sun created a big scene in front of the whole school. Everyone in the corridor looked at us. Insult after insult was flung at me, making me increasingly irritated and frustrated. Now, enough was enough. Gathering every ounce of confidence I could find, I spoke up for myself. Sun looked startled. I felt awesome. After all this time, I was letting my emotions loose. As insults and comebacks flew around, my fellow students stared on with eyes as wide as dinner plates. As I did this, I did not realize that tiny wisps of light, barely visible, started appearing around me. All the onlookers gasped in awe. These lights grew in size and became brighter. They were beautiful. These lights only appeared when I was ecstatically happy. All of the people around me started calling the lights ‘Aurora’.
Sun slowly fell silent. When he finally stopped for good, many people from the crowds came up to me, wishing to talk to me. All of them wanted to be my friends. My shy, introverted-self was becoming popular! Sun looked on at me with contempt, for all his friends had just abandoned him and were flocking around me, the person they used to look down upon a few minutes back.
I was perplexed. Why did the Aurora lights only appear when I was happy? Finally, I understood. Whenever I was ecstatically happy, Aurora lights would appear all around me. This happened because I used to be bullied by Sun EVERY.SINGLE.DAY. But, I never let that stop me from being normal and happy.
The fact that I never let Sun’s negative comments about me bring me down and never became sad was what made me special. It was what made me beautiful.
Moral: Struggles are what bring out your hidden beauty.
