note, if big long explanations of answers bore you, skip ahead to the bolded section at the bottom that contains the summary of my opinion.

I liked the story, for the most part. Greta story, characters, build up, etcetera but I felt the end lacked resolution. Jimmy had a dream of vengence and then did the mature, responisble thing in real life. Albeit noble, to me it showed great weakness in his character. He never "did" anything about his problem. He let the bully pick on him. He never once did anything to try and bring his torment to an end. Stanley got his karmatic comeupings, but not at Jimmy's hands. Because of that, I found it impossible to empathise with Jimmy and his situation.

But yeah, overall I liked it, but was disappointed with the ending. I got it, in that the point was he grew up to be a responsible, respectable person, but he still seemed to lack a backbone. As in, he never stopped being bullied, which would have made him go through life being a mental and physical wreck. Personally, I've found that people who go through life like Jimmy had, end up on a very destructive path that never has a happy ending.
It was never indicated or implied that Jimmy ever stuck up for himself nor did anyone else ever stick up for him. For example, he had a brother who was 5 years older than him. I don't know much about the social development of children in other societies, but here, people with older brothers were not picked on by anyone other than their older brother or sister and their friends. They were "untouchable" to bullies, which for most, made them more smart-mouthed than most, because they new no one could touch them. Let me put it this way, if some little kid half my sized was picking on my little brother who has a physical disadvantage, they person would be breathing through a hose untill he learned why it was a bad idea.

To me, this story would have been more credible with a female cast than with a male cast. Girls tend to solve their differences through mental and emotional torment whilst boys solve their differences physically.

A kid that wound (wownd not woond) is likely to snap, which is more of what I was expecting. His dad told him to just smile, take it with a grain of salt, so to speak. But that didn't work. I would have thought he would have tried something else but never did.

Another unresolved issue I had were the other boys. They were noted in the beginning. The end, because it was a dream sequence, is apart from reality. I could not decipher whether or not they actually felt that way or if they had grown up remaining harsh and cold. If they truely did befriend Jimmy or if that was all just a part of the dream and in reality he still had no friends.

It was also quite a bit of a shock for Jimmy's father to pull a one-eighty at the end, switching from the "just smile at them" attitude to "Respect my _! That _ got what was coming to him. Tormenting Jimmy all these years. It's about time Karma paid this low life a visit." I think Jimmy could have benefitted from that fatherly attitude about 17 years earlier.

The only other thing I wanted to mention, although it's forgiven because it was a short story, the question of "why" was never answered. You never knew why the bully picked on him, what his motivation was, nor why any of the other guys followed him. But again, because it was a short, those points have to be overlooked or assumed in order to move the story. I just like things like that, the reason I always go for the "extended" versions of movies and such.

Anyway, I think I made all my points. I hope you take all of that for what it is (or what I intend it to be) - constructive criticism.

I really enjoyed the story, it was well written and the plot was great, I just felt the ending was lacking resolution because Jimmy's character never evolved beyond being a physical and mental punching bag for bullies.

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