I tried to cue up a comment to the opening statement of Anthony’s slide show, but was interrupted by a second picture. This one of a toddler riding a tricycle.

“I didn’t realize it, but I was beyond fucked from the start. Born with a disease which weakened my heart, nothing in my body got the blood it was supposed to. I was a weakling and there was nothing I could do about it.”

The next picture that popped up was of a young boy with a bowl cut wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt in a first day of school photo. I judged the age to be Kindergarten or first. The boy did not look familiar, simply looked like any rail thin, blonde-haired boy you’d see on a playground.

“But I didn’t know yet. I was just a happy kid. I played in my sand box. I watched my favorite TV shows and movies. I played video games in the arcade at the mall. I picked my nose and avoided baths just like any other little boy. But it wouldn’t last.”

The picture switched to a photo of that same bowl-cutted, golden blonde-haired boy crying with a black eye, standing in a backyard next to a broken toy fire truck.

“Elementary school was when it started, back when the kids are so young and cruel and don’t even know it’s a bad thing. They simply saw the scrawniest, the weirdest, the one who wet the bed at nap time after recess and went after him like sharks.”

The grandiosity of Anthony’s delivery had washed away any sympathy I may have been able to muster up. He sounded like he thought he was doing some kind of masterpiece theatre introduction. Like that person who never stops posting about political causes on your Facebook newsfeed, he was actually hurting his own case, even if I agreed with it.