Dave knew he wasn't very bright. He was reminded of it almost every day by at least one adult at his school or at home, the reminder usually glued to a compliment or sandwiched in between them like bitter frosting in a sweet layer cake.
"Dave, you're a good kid, maybe not too bright, but you always do your best."
"Dave, I hate to see you having such a hard time in class. You're not my brightest student, but you work as hard as any of them."
"No one's going to call Dave a genius, but he's as strong as an ox and twice as determined."
His worst grades were in Geography. He had a pretty difficult time in Algebra and Chemistry and English, too, but trying to remember all those foreign names and their relationships to one another was torture. While he would study, he'd think, over and over again, "I couldn't remember this to save my life." He'd start fantasizing about being under circumstances in which he'd be called upon to do that - to save his own life by answering a series of geography questions in some kind of ultimate high-stakes tournament.
He imagined it as a kind of televised game show from a grisly, dark future full of casual decapitations done before cheering, maniacal crowds. There would be a master-of-ceremonies, with a voice like a boxing ring announcer, who would introduce him to the horrible spectators.
"And now, weighing in at 190lbs., from Rancho Cucamonga, California...Daaaaaaaaaaaave the Not Too Briiiiiiight!"
The crowd would cheer and scream and generally lose their collective shit as he blinked in the hot spotlights and cringed before
the remains of previous idiots who could also not remember the capital of Iceland.
He could maybe even get a question right before he starting messing up, and then the chopping would begin.
"What two countries border Spain?"
CHOP
"What country was home to the 1988 Winter Olympics?"
CHOP
"In what US state can you find Richmond, Harrisonburg, and Charlottesville?"
CHOP
"Which one of the Baltic states was first to draft a constitution?"
CHOP
He'd be just a head and a torso by then, inexplicably not dead from blood loss, awaiting his final failure.
"What is the largest city in Costa Rica?"
CHOP
And then he'd never have to think about Geography ever again.
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