4 ½ Minutes By Kate Sheofsky Summary

The Damage Is Done People feel lonely all the time. I mean, what’s new? Sometimes our friends ditch us, so we end up sitting in our rooms by ourselves on a Friday night. Or maybe, you are the only one out of your friend group who does not have a boyfriend or girlfriend. Another case might be your family, and maybe they do not seem to care about you or talk to you a lot. There are many reasons why we feel lonely or different, or maybe an outcast. Everybody has felt the feeling of loneliness sometime in their life before, and a good example would be Miles from “4 ½ Minutes” by Kate Sheofsky. Bullying is something that has always seemed to be a problem, and still is today. In this story, Miles reveals to the tattoo artist that he was bullied in high school for being a homosexual. It starts off with his tattoo artist asking Miles where he got his scar on his shoulder. Miles replies that he got it in high school and adds a very important statement: “Some guys at school wanted to know if a faggot bleeds the same as a real man, so they held me down and twisted a buck knife onto me” (Sheofsky 1). This chilling scene not only shows that he was

Miles had no friends, which is why he got a whole body tattoo. His whole body tattoo was to be shown to his “friends” also known as the marine life in the aquarium. ‘Miles stands naked atop the tank, turning slowly in circles, flaunting the intricate scene that decorates him from the neck down. He whispers over and over, “I’m just like you now. I’m just like you.”’ (Sheofsky 3). Just because Miles was different from others, should not mean that people should shun him or consider him an outcast. This advice goes to people today who still continue to bully homosexuals, transgender, slow, or just “different” people. Loneliness can lead people to do dangerous things, just like Miles killed himself because he had no human