This is life, not a fairy tale; there are no happy endings. There is no such thing as true, unadulterated happiness. With so many variables in life the only thing that is constant, is the existence of change. Nothing, no one is dependable, everything we hope for ends up being a little less than intended. People are unfair; they do not always make the fairest decisions. Life isn’t fair. These points are evident in many circumstances, but one in particular stands out; these are the trials and tribulations of one young man, named Galileo Mathews Grandhart, who was unfortunate enough to be dealt the cards he has in the game he plays, the one we all do, life.

Since he was real young, about two, Galileo figured, something was different between him and everyone else. He couldn’t quite grasp the identity of the faint difference between others and himself, but he knew it was there. Galileo often, after learning how to verbalize it, would ask his mother what the mysterious dissimilarity of himself to the people in his life might be, but every time she would dismiss his confused inquiry with the same seemingly facile answer, “Now honey you’re no different from any other boy. You just think you are because you don’t know enough yet to think other-wise. You’re just too little.” This only made his quest for the truth even more important to him, yet he kept quiet and stopped asking her since he had realized it got him nowhere. So months went on and became years and little by little he was growing up; he was getting lost in the tides of day to day life, his mission for his answer fading into the flow of his life, not yet close to passing the juvenile stages of its development. The memories of his peculiar thoughts had almost completely dissipated. By this time he was eight.

It was the fourth day of September, and the air was cool with the mild aroma of decomposing oak leaves infused the air with a relaxing aura. School had begun same time as usual, and as usual Galileo was late, and also as usual he had no idea he was late until he arrived. Even though his teacher, Mr. Newton thought that every time Galileo was late he must have woken up late, this was not the case. Actually he often was simply distracted on his approximately five minute walk from his house to his school (which was just beyond the small forest behind his house) by the odd things he would see in hear in all the animals that he came across in the forest. Galileo tried explaining this to Mr. Newton numerous times before, but to no avail; Mr. Newton would just tell Galileo “It’s not a good idea to lie all the time Mr. Grandhart, now go take your seat and try to catch up with the class.” Galileo hated school and this was why. After Mr. Newton was finished his usual lecture on the importance of telling the truth, that he always gave Galileo, and Galileo had taken his usual seat near the window, he began to think about this or that. His ponderings included brief daydreams, his plans for the future (both close and much later in his life), and his usual questions, but on this day, as he sat there in his desk, spaced –out even though he should have been working on his vocabulary packet that was due tomorrow, he thought a thought he had long forgotten, “Why am I so different?”
This sudden renewal of a long departed inquiry was initiated by one phenomenon he presumed to be unusual. As he slowly broke from his sleepy daze Galileo’s eyes began to focus upon a randomly chosen target. This had been the name on another’s test, and as his attention sharpened to an almost completely alert sense of being, Galileo’s eyes started to scroll across his class-mates paper. He noticed that their hand-writing was so much smoother and elegant than his own attempt at legibility in which he miserably failed. In a effort to make his failure appear of a lesser value, and to uphold his high stature among the judging eyes of the imaginary apparitions that dwell in the interior reaches of his own mind, Galileo looked at yet another student’s test in hope that it would match his own, and prove that the first child’s paper was simply of an above average level of excellence. Galileo was devastated with his findings. That child’s handwriting was, other than a few stylistic differences, identical to the other one’s. Frantically, he examined all the papers in reach of his view, and everyone displayed the same horrid news. They were all better than his hand writing. “What’s wrong with me?” He thought. “Why is mine so horrible?” ”Why?” The questions began to over-flow in his brain. He was in utter despair. He let out a quiet sobbing, and Galileo didn’t completely stop crying until he got home. Galileo, being the son of two very well known Bio-chemists, had no choice but to adopt an almost perfectionist attitude towards life in order to “fit in” with the rest of his family. This never worked for him though, because every time he thought he was doing a good job someone always bested him, no matter what it was. He couldn’t keep up with his older brothers Watson and Franklin athletically because he was the runt of the family, and he couldn’t make as high of grades as his sister Agamede because he always spaced out during tests and things. He was just Galileo, not Galileo who got good grades, not Galileo who ran fast, not even Galileo the boy who doesn’t get in trouble, no he was just Galileo the failure.
When Galileo got home he went straight to his room for he was too upset to eat or play. He just wanted to sleep. Then about midnight he got hungry so he went down stairs to eat. On the way back to his room he passed a mirror and his eyes came alive as he awoke. He had never really looked in a mirror thoroughly before, and he began to truly get a feel for his own appearance. Galileo stood at about five foot even, from head to toe. He had dirty-blonde hair and bluish-green eyes. His hair was long and basically just drooped over his face and neck like a blanket. Galileo had pale skin and faint freckles on his cheeks. Now knowing what he appeared like in the mirror he continued on to bed. He was smiling at a thought that swept over and shrouded his bad thoughts much like his hair does his face. He wasn’t a nobody he was just not anybody else; he was his own person. He went to sleep knowing tomorrow will be a better day, for he now knew through his midnight epiphany he doesn’t need to live up to the achievements of other, rather he needs to make his own…