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Transcript:
My name is Harvey and I am twenty-two years old. This is the story of how my tongue ruined my whole life. And, I mean this in the literal sense. My tongue is the biggest villain of my life, so much so, that sometimes I wish I wasn’t born.
Everything was okay till the age of four. But, as soon as I turned five, things started taking a turn for the worse. My tongue started growing. It was not noticeable at first, but, as time passed, I started developing a lisp and was taken to the speech therapist.
He was the one who pointed out that my tongue had overgrown and was the cause of my speech difficulties. Then, we went to an ENT specialist. He diagnosed my condition and declared that there was no treatment available for it. And, also grimly told us that my tongue was not just overgrown, as in, it was not just in the past. It would keep on growing and become my present and my future.
There was no lie behind his words because in the upcoming years, it really kept on happening. My tongue was growing and there was no way to stop it. And, with this started arising many other difficulties.
The first thing that was affected was, of course, my speech. I wasn’t able to speak clearly. The words came out of my mouth but didn’t make any sense. The kids in school used to call me ‘drunk’, making fun of my slurring voice.
As if that was not enough, people started making fun of my appearance too. The overgrown tongue gave my mouth an ugly edge and it looked beyond horrid. Even, I was scared to look at my reflection in the mirror.
This all affected my academic performance. I used to score good in written tests but, in the oral ones, the teachers refused to cut me some slack and always failed me because of my inability to form coherent words. Sometimes, it made me wonder if the teachers despised me secretly as well.
I wouldn’t blame them if they did, because there was nothing worth liking in me. My whole future was in dark. There was no solution in sight.
Amidst all this, I went to a party once. It was because my parents forced me ‘socialize’ which was impossible considering no one was too keen on talking to me. I simply occupied a gloomy corner at the party and waited for it to get over.
It was halfway through the party that a girl approached me. I was shocked because no one had ever tried to talk to me before, let alone a girl. I was embarrassed too, because I couldn’t communicate with her properly.
She didn’t give me the chance to talk though. She started saying that how she had always observed me in the classes and that she had always had a crush on me. I was speechless.
How was it even possible?
“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I always felt bad that people secluded you like that. But, never had the courage to confront you, until today. I saw you sitting here all by yourself and took this as my opportunity.”
I had a feeling that something really fishy was going on here. I didn’t want to doubt her and jeopardize my only chance at making a friend, though. So, all I did was just nod my head in agreement.
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