Michael Malone - Weebly

hostility toward his fellow Dingleyans. For example, the
anonymous letters (which he thought he had started as a
genuine political response by a concerned citizen to
Dingley Falls's so-called leaders) had seemed cause for
concern only when no one would acknowledge that
they were being written. The silence of others had
forced him to lie, to claim to have been threatened
himself. Perhaps the letters had gotten a little out of
control, but it had been just a joke, just something he
had gotten into doing. There had been no chance of
getting caught, and most of what he wrote was
probably true anyhow. They had it coming for the
contempt with which they belittled him by their bland,
disinterested faces. He knew he was smart, picked up
on things; caught, he said, vibes that others missed. He
could see through them all so easily. Yet they never
noticed how well he had read them over all these years.
They had annihilated him by never noticing his hate.
Nothing he did could slap the smiles off their faces.
That's what caused his rushing panic. Because it
seemed that no matter how much he was pulled out of
control—not insane, he said, just blowing his cool—