Isn’t it amusing how the only time a kindergarten classroom feels like a safe and creative environment is when you’re no longer in one? Your sullen five o’clock shadow befitting the mood accentuated by and in the reminiscence of your former glory; youth.

As a child in the learning environment, most of my sensuous experience was a terrifying nightmare.

First, my mother was nowhere to be seen in class. For all of my life her presence was a constant, and now I’m expected to spend several hours a day without her touch or voice? Ridiculous.

Second, all of the colors, the faces, the figures, the shapes, the curtains, the names, the walls, the doors, the sounds…the heavy scented perfume that can only be accurately described by Patrick Suskind in a cheap follow-up to his original novel. Heavy, heavy perfume that still visits me today on the street or in an elevator. The owners of such perfumes? Big women who seem to have nothing better to do than play the “let’s see how far we can take this boy on an edge and stop just before he cries” game.

All of the aforementioned details and squabbles of former troubles begin to take shape; I don’t really recall my first love, I do however clearly remember my first hate.

Her name was Doris.

She was an English lady in her late fifties. I’m rather optimistic about the chances of her being beneath the ground we walk on. Doris seemed to make it a point to upset me on a daily basis. It may sound, indeed I may be, a little too harsh on Doris the demon, knowing how young minds create fantastical stories in their heads. But our dear Doris really did enjoy making me cry, at least once, that much is certain.

You’d think a teacher in a respected school would be careful not to emotionally abuse a child, alas, not Deviled Doris. One of those fresh spring days where schools hold festivals and carnivals, my mother and myself were passing the time at the school’s ‘fun day’. Her, boldly, politely socializing and making sure I was happy, myself clung unto her hand like a magnet reluctant to let go. She tells me she’s off to the bathroom for a minute and though I was dismayed, I held my own.

Enter the ethically destitute Doris. Coldly, provokingly, she leans down and informs me that “Mama has left you, forever.” I refused to believe her of course, after all, this was my mother, an angel who would never leave her offspring. “I promise you Karim, she’s gone for good, and you’re all alone here”.

At this, my eyes are welling up and my once adamant belief in my mother’s return quickly crumbled like the unscrupulous mountain of morality this undignified woman laid plain for. Cue the water works; the boy has lost the plot. Not satisfied with torturing my soul and castrating my trust in authority, she whips out the camera, (mind you, without my knowledge or consent) and snaps a defaming photograph of my brooding, haunted spirit, from then on I was known as the Cry Baby. Why?

Because Doris was not content to leave it there, no sir. She posts the photo in the 2001-2002 yearbook underneath the tagline “Wah wah, I want my mommy” placed next to a cartoon of an infant melodramatically weeping.

My mother helped reconstruct the pieces of the story years later, because she knew Doris had done that on purpose. Doris had told my mother instantly why I was crying, my mother did, indeed still does, think of that memory with warmth and laughter, and I am sat here, a figure full of verbal malice towards authority of any kind.

Now, when I return to kindergartens, they all look so happy and full of life, but I recall being there myself and feeling like there was a war to be won. My first hate was born in that time and in a sense I’m ever-so slightly grateful.

I wouldn’t say the first thing I do when I get up is hate, but metaphorically it could be construed as a motive. Hatred burns within you and it creates a dangerous fire that is very difficult to put out. In a sense, hatred lasts a lot longer than love. Grudges last a lifetime and they are certainly a reason to do something, hatred pushes me forward. Love tends to dwindle and flicker like a candle without oxygen, it’s more difficult to cultivate love, and it’s exhausting to keep love flowing through your veins. Hatred is so easy, it’s almost instinctual. And it serves me well. I hate oppression of any kind, which gives me reason to write and fight for freedom than say, loving my enemies (as we were always taught to do). Love and hate go hand in hand, but because Doris kindled the flame within me all those years ago, I’ll always marinate in a pool of passionate spite.

I think that’s rather poetic, don’t you?