Anonymous: So on the senior picture don’t you think it’s odd that Nate & Zach are completely on the the other side from Eric & Dylan? (Top right side of picture) Also can you find any victims in the picture? Tks, C

I don’t necessarily find that odd. Whenever school pictures were made here, I ended up standing/sitting with half of my group of friends but never with all of them. =) It’s likely they just piled together with a small group they knew (Brooks and Robyn Anderson among them) and didn’t have the chance to include Nate and Zach. It’s a huge group of seniors in that picture, so I’m willing to bet that there are more people who didn’t get to sit with all their friends in that shot.

I don’t see any victims in the picture when I look at it right now. Many of the students they killed weren’t in senior year. Isaiah Shoels was a senior, but is known to be absent on the photograph. I’m also sure that Lauren Townsend should be in that picture as well, but as far as I can see she’s not present either. (If anyone does spot her or anyone else, let me know?) Sorry if this isn’t a lot of help!

_{Evidence found in Eric’s bedroom.}

columbinearchive:

_{Columbine memorial}

Bad Subjects: Buffy: Hero for the Columbine Generation

A final shot of the Buffy season finale features a charred high school yearbook balanced on some rubble. “The Future is Yours!” the cover trumpets. But we know the future is not theirs, because they have learned nothing from our censored history, our R-rated present. The future is just a bunch of fake adult sentiment written in cheerful white letters over the wreckage of these young people’s lives.

Bad Subjects: Buffy: Hero for the Columbine Generation

Did the Law Cause Columbine?

It’s a bit of a dry read, to be fair, but it does raise some interesting points on school violence and the system in general. A brief excerpt:

The idea of an arms race inside the schools is not going to solve the problems. And let me also say, and it is one of the things about Columbine that ought not detract us from keeping our eye on the ball, Columbine involved violence, it is true, but the larger problem are the problems of undiscipline in the school, lack of authority, lack of teaching environment. Columbine brought that home to us in technicolor with this extended problem. But if we focus on Columbine as a violence issue only, we will have lost an extraordinary chance to reform our public school system.

So notions of guns for teachers in this debate not only involves mistaken solutions, but mistakes about what the real problems and real issues posed by Columbine have been.

Did the Law Cause Columbine?

Wounded Minds Project

Columbine: Wounded Minds is a documentary told from our perspective for the first time. This documentary isn’t just a message, it’s a movement.

This looks to be an interesting project. The trailer’s certainly worth a view. =) I’m curious to see the end result of this.

Wounded Minds Project

I LOVE reading your commentary on Cullen’s book, I’ve only just started it but I always get excited when I finish a chapter because it means I can read your thoughts on it before I start the next one.

Aww, thank you very much, that’s so nice to hear! =) (I’m praying for your poor soul, though, because that book just gets worse and worse as time progresses. ;))

What the fuck is Dylan doing in this shot..

Over The Rainbow I Am Crazy…: Columbinus

otter-than-most:

a lot of people have reblogged my posts about columbine, sent me messages of praise and explanation on their views of columbine and such..

I posted awhile ago that I saw the play Columbinus. I didn’t really elaborate, all I said was that I couldn’t describe it.

I’m warning you now… Don’t ask…

Over The Rainbow I Am Crazy…: Columbinus

In addition to other evidence police confiscated five video tapes the teens shot in the basement of Eric’s home (wherein they showed off how well their weapons could be hidden under their trenchcoats). It was in these videos that Dylan’s true dark side showed. No sheep, he; no hapless follower blindly tagging after Eric’s lead. This was a shotgun-cracking angry young man who wanted to hurt people and showed it in his words and body language.

(via noeasyanswers)

acolumbineblog:

Some of the explosives recovered after April 20, 1999

Reading Cullen’s Columbine: Chapters 31-35

Ugh, reading this book reminds me of getting sand stuck between your buttcheeks at the beach. Previous installments of my struggle can be read here, here, here, here, here, and here.

My experience with this latest installment can be summarised thusly:

Onward!

Chapter Thirty-One

• This marks my step into the third part of the book. I feel like I’m being taken deeper and deeper into the circles of hell.

• I’m laughing because Dave makes it sound like Dylan was trying to be Eric’s everything at the tender age of fifteen.

• I like how Dave describes the way Dylan’s mind works. It ties right back into my theory of Dylan being gifted. “Dylan’s head was bursting with ideas, sounds, impressions–he could never turn the racket off.”

• How much did Dylan talk to girls through IM? Dave describes that Dylan would IM alone in his room for hours at night.

• I agree that loneliness was a huge part of Dylan’s problem. Dave acknowledged that Dylan felt cut off from humanity. It’s a nice touch that Dave takes the trouble to describe how Dylan saw most of humanity (zombies by choice) and why this frustrated Dylan so.

• Dylan’s spirituality used to come as a surprise to me. I find it very interesting how someone with such a strong spiritual life could finally rise to the act of murder. His belief in the immortality of his soul is, however, probably the only thing that kept him going at all.

• Dave writes that Dylan was not planning to kill anyone. I beg to differ. I believe that it was a very gradual process for him, sure, but the plans were there and so was the emotion necessary to make it happen. I do believe that suicide was the stronger part of him, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t planning on killing people. Dave, I am disappointed.

• “Dylan exceeded even Eric in his belief in his own singularity. But Eric equated "unique” with “superior”–Dylan saw it mostly as bad. Unique meant lonely.“

  I think unique meant lonely for both of them, to be honest with you here, and I’m not even sure if Dave’s interpretation is correct. What I find interesting is how Eric spent quite a bit of time going all philosophical about things like originality vs conformation, whereas Dylan never really seems to give a fuck about it and just ruminates on his own existence as separate from the rest of the world. I think Eric made himself superior ‘like a god’ because that was the only way he could deal with everyone’s opinions/rejections/etc, whereas Dylan felt so unique that he cast himself as non-human and spent his lifetime wanting to connect to ‘the foreign race of mankind’. They use their sense of solitude differently.

• Fuselier spent years studying their journals and this theory of depressive/psychopath is still the best he can come up with? Are you fucking serious.. I think I have found my new calling: I’m gonna go work for the Feds. (Honestly, half of us on the tag would do a better job with the information than Fuselier did..)

• "Eric would begin his journal as a killer.” THIS. THIS. THIS. Eric’s journal was ‘showtime’ for whatever the hell he wanted you to see him as, Fuselier. Eric’s journal was never about pondering his existence like Dylan’s was. It was simply a document for his growing rage, his hatred, and his plans. Eric put the worst of himself into that journal and he got everyone working the case believing that was all he was. You were played, Fuselier, and played very well indeed. How did you not catch on to this? You should’ve questioned every damn thing about that journal, especially given Eric’s admissions that he’s a fantastic liar. You should’ve taken a step back to say “hey, maybe this journal is a purposeful craft” and you should’ve taken a moment to see the kid behind the rage. I’m having a hard time believing that you can spend years studying this shit and NOT see you’re being played for a fool.

• Dave ends this chapter on a note I agree with, namely that Dylan had no clue how to connect with most of the people around him and that his journal was mostly him being in a depressive/suicidal state of mind.

Chapter Thirty-Two

• For many, Cassie Bernall was ‘the heroine of Columbine’. A lot of calls for Jesus rose up in those days following the massacre. They played Cassie’s role as her having been someone who’d “stood before a gunman who’d transported her immediately into the presence of the Almighty God”. One pastor said that Cassie had been ready for this. READY. You can’t ever be ready to die at that age when death is something that’s forced on you..

• Here comes the first “she said yes”-story. Cassie had professed her faith to the gunman and been shot in the head for it. I’m shaking my head.

• “Millions have been touched by a martyr,” Pastor Kirsten proclaimed to his congregation. He shared a vision his youth pastor had received while ministering to the Bernalls: “I saw Cassie, and I saw Jesus, hand in hand. And they had just gotten married. They had just celebrated their marriage ceremony. And Cassie kind of winked over at me, like, ‘I’d like to talk, but I’m so much in love.’ Her greatest prayer was to find the right guy. Don’t you think she did?”

  Are you fucking kidding me. Are you fucking serious. Are you for real right now. I’m gaping at my screen in disbelief. I don’t even have enough words to comment on this..

• The opportunism of ‘winning souls’ didn’t sit well with everybody from the clergy, thankfully. I’m weeping with laughter over dear Reverend Marxhausen’s comment that he felt “hit over the head with Jesus” at the service. I love this man.

• Hmm, okay, we’re with Rachel Scott’s brother Craig right now and Dave feels the need to describe him as “exceptionally good looking, like his sister”. It’s interesting to read how Craig took off his white hat and stuffed it under his shirt the moment he heard the boys yell about the white hats. (Dave says one of the boys yelled “get everyone with white hats!”, but that’s not the official version is it?) Craig was with Matthew Kechter and Isaiah Shoels under one table.. Way I see it, he’s lucky to have lived.

• The moment Craig got out of the library, he prayed and asked other kids to join him in prayer. Dave describes him as leading a small prayer group. Within an hour or two, he began to fear that his sister might be dead. I can’t imagine that feeling.. The hope she’s alive and then the growing fear that she might not be..

• So, hold on, Craig is the source for the “she said yes”? He began to tell the story about how he’d heard one girl profess her faith in the library. The media picked up on that and turned it into a circus. (Did Craig ever even state that it was Cassie, though? I wonder..)

• Cassie’s parents were unsure what to make of this at first, but they were soon ‘filled with pride’. Initially, her dad seemed to draw more strength from it than her mom did. Yet, her mom is also cited as saying “I can’t think of a more honorable way to die than to profess your faith in God”. Yeah I don’t even know what to say.. whatever makes you feel better and able to deal with the death of your baby girl?

Chapter Thirty-Three

• Dylan wasn’t so bad at sports, right? Just checking.. I’m starting to feel like Dave’s creating a fairytale of a really nice shy awkward guy with Dylan..

• Dylan didn’t want to harm us? He found us interesting, like new toys? Dave, kid, let me tell you a thing. If someone sees you as a toy, it means that your existence is so far beneath them that they don’t give a damn if you live or die. Are you really claiming further down this page that Dylan never quite seemed to believe he was “God”? He was claiming godhood. He was fully on the page with that – but I agree that he did seem to see himself as being on the ‘good side’.

• Okay, so, the boys stole a few Rent-A-Fence signs from a construction site. Pretty sure they’re not the only teenagers in the universe to have done such a thing.

• Oh, yes, bring me Eric’s hate lists. Bring them to the table as evidence that he’s a malicious piece of shit. I agree with Fuselier that Eric was expressing contempt in them, sure, but I don’t see how the underlying theme of “you’re all inferior” gets you to the analysis of a psychopathic lunatic..

  How many teenagers have hate lists like that, huh? I could’ve summarised you a list of at least a hundred things I hated back in the day, and I’m pretty damn sure that every teenager who feels misunderstood and disliked can give you a similar list. I’m also quite certain of the fact that every teenager put into the social position the boys held at the time will be able to express bucketloads of contempt for the “stupid inferior humans” that make up most of the world. It’s a teenager thing. These hate lists. They’re not valid arguments in themselves.

• Okay, so, I have no problem with the descriptions of Eric’s first walk into creating bombs. This is a miracle. Let’s all take a moment, form a prayer circle, and recognise that I agree with Dave on something.

• A concerned citizen, most likely Brooks Brown’s dad, read the website and reported it to police. In August 1997, the police were made aware of the missions. In their report, however, there is no mention of pipebombs.

• Dave actually doesn’t gloss over Dylan’s mention that he wouldn’t mind killing Devon for getting together with Zach. That’s a big step, Dave, I’m so proud. It does mark the first time Dylan throws the thought of killing someone out there.

• “And Dylan did not yet consider Eric his best friend. Dylan belabored the point that no one besides Zack had ever understood him; no one else appreciated him. That would include Eric.”

  I do wonder if Dylan ever saw Eric as his best, best friend of all time. I don’t think he ever truly got past ‘losing’ Zach that way. I think that Eric thought that way about Dylan, but I’m not sure if Dylan reciprocated the feeling as much as is commonly assumed..

• An interesting point was raised a while back somewhere how it’s convenient that Dylan stumbled into his first love right after Zach found his. Reading this, I’m again reminded of it..

• Shortly after, we’re back to “life’s not fair”.. and this time Dylan mentions getting a gun. He planned to turn it on himself.

• Fuselier didn’t see any indication of psychosis in either of the boys. I’m still wondering if Dylan wasn’t verging on a psychotic break, though.. Some of his writing’s so disjointed and so ‘spacey’ that I wouldn’t discount it completely.

• This is the first actual mention of psychopathy. I’m not prepared for this shit. Dave writes that it denotes a specific condition within psychiatry, but at least half of the psychiatric world is unconvinced on the ‘psychopath’ and will mostly opt to describe it as “anti-social personality disorder”. It’s a really, really controversial condition. You can’t diagnose anyone with this post-mortem. If this is truly the backbone of this book, then I am going to facepalm my way through the next chapters.

• Fuselier was fully aware that Dylan was a depressive, but how he got from depressed to murderous stumped him. If a depressive does resort to murder, it is usually limited to the death of one person. A few lash out at specific targets. Yet, the rarest form of a depressive whose rage turns outward is the one who wants to lash out at everything at random. I’d classify Dylan as this latter type. Fuselier doesn’t quite agree.

  “Murder or even suicide takes willpower as well as anger. Dylan fantasized about suicide for years without making an attempt.”

  This is the reason Fuselier uses to discard Dylan as a candidate working on his own. I have one problem with this. Many depressives will hold off on suicide for months or years, so Dylan’s not a unique case. I agree that Dylan wasn’t a man of action and that Eric brought the action to the table, but that doesn’t mean that Dylan couldn’t have found that willpower he needed to do the unthinkable somewhere down the line.. I think it all just happened ‘earlier’ than it would’ve if he’d been acting on his own.

Chapter Thirty-Four

• I still haven’t quite gotten used to the structure of this book.

• Wow, Patrick really had to learn how to talk again.. I can’t imagine the frustration it must’ve cost him to try and clarify what he wanted and thought. His short-term memory was fine, so that’s what usually came out of his mouth without problems.. Anything else, though, and he’d have to scramble to get the words out right. And, okay, the mention of “picture-perfect marsupials” does make me laugh even when nobody remembers where the hell that came from.

• He had no idea of the scale of the massacre, although he did know what had happened. It’s probably for the best that he wasn’t fully aware of how huge his role was in the media.

• Patrick couldn’t write down what he was thinking, either. It all just came out in scribbles. He wanted to get out of the hospital. He asked, frequently, how long “this” was going to continue because he didn’t really have time to be here. He wanted to be valedictorian of his class and do sports and everything. He couldn’t understand the severity of his situation.

• Oh ye gods, my heart hurts. Patrick finally saw Corey DePooter’s picture on TV, listed as one of the people killed. Corey’d been one of his best friends. Patrick believes this to be the first time he started to cry. He’d been so sheltered from most of it and then he saw that picture and.. ugh.. I’m having a moment here, guys.

• Oh, here come the fifteen wooden crosses seven days after the massacre. On thirteen crosses, there was consent in messages of love and remembrance. On two, there was bitter debate. Some messages were forgiving. Others were hateful.

• The crosses of the boys woud last for three days. Brian Rohrbough had finally had enough. And I do understand his sentiment so very, very well. I believe it is important to forgive (Brian does not agree with me), but I think it was simply too much too soon. The community was not in the right place to be able to forgive.

• I actually don’t like that he called CNN when he went to tear the crosses down. I agree that it shouldn’t be something done in darkness, but to me this is just a needless cry of anger and hatred. Just taking the crosses away would’ve been enough.

• The crosses were a source of comfort for the community. I really would’ve liked to see the messages written on them, to be honest.

Chapter Thirty-Five

• Dave’s really milking the first theft, isn’t he? “Eric liked the feeling, he wanted more.” Dave, cite me how you can possibly tell that he liked it.. except, well, for the part where the kids got a hold of locker combinations and began to break into those lockers. (I seem to recall a list of locker numbers/combinations that were mainly from their friends, though? Or was that from the investigation post-4/20?)

• Eric’s dad is really factual about this sort of thing, isn’t he? The record of the locker break-in would be destroyed upon graduation, which is really all dad seemed to care about. Containment. His son’s future. Eric lost his computer privileges and was grounded/forbidden contact.

• The Klebolds disagreed with the suspension, but did ground Dylan and forbade him contact with Eric and Zach. They did recognise that it was a “shocking lapse of ethics”.

• Zach began to drift away from the boys after this, so that left them as a pair.

• Eric was not a depressive like Dylan? “That was for sure”? I don’t know.. Dylan was more vocal in his depression. I don’t discount the possibility of Eric being depressed at that stage. (We’re talking a year and a half before the actual massacre, by the way.. Eric would go on to check ‘depression’ on the diversion list a mere few months after this locker thing.)

• Oh, now Fuselier/Dave state that anger and young men are practically synonymous. You do realise that this is undermining your theory, right, people?

• The first mention of Natural Born Killers described as “the pop culture artifact most associated with the massacre”. I have to say, though, that I wasn’t aware of the NBK-link until I really got into the case. Most media here never got beyond Marilyn Manson and every dark and dreary thing as a scapegoat.

• Eric’s attitude was certainly egotistical, but empathy-free? Not quite.

• DAVE you actually praised Eric here. Are you losing your touch? “Eric–who was a gifted critical thinker with a voracious appetite for the classics.” I’m actually laughing at you, Dave. You try so very very hard not to like the kid.

• I find it interesting that Eric’s dad never referred to the incident where he discovered one of his son’s pipebombs in his journal. After that incident, Eric covered his tracks a lot better.

• Tom and Sue went to family counseling with Dylan when they kicked his older brother out of the house? I do wonder why they felt it necessary, but maybe they felt the upheaval was too great for their family to work through by themselves. (I do wonder how the family therapist didn’t catch on to Dylan’s depression, but then again he was quite good at fooling everyone in his environment about it..)

• Dylan’s second allusion to murder is a killing spree. He changed the subject immediately, but the statement was made. I don’t think it was much more than a fleeting thought, or something that was in the back of his mind but didn’t come to the foreground so much.

• Dave says that Dylan was probably contemplating doing this with Eric, but that’s not the impression I got from his journal at all at this point!

• I’m still upset that I don’t know exactly who first coined the idea and how the hell that came up in conversation and stuff like that. I would give a lot to be able to hear that first ‘click’ between the boys where this is concerned.

• I love Eric’s essay about guns in schools. It’s one of his better works, imo.

• Okay, I’d also give a lot to see Dylan’s list of people who loved him. Too bad that one got redacted as well.

• Hahahaha Eric “made it with a real woman”. I just can’t. I’m too amused to even pick up my shovel right now. Actually, the thought of this just makes me cry with laughter. We all know that Brenda Parker made the entire thing up, but that doesn’t make the fact that Dave included her less funny. *giggles*

  Dave, let me quote you a thing from Eric’s last journal entry. “Why the fuck can’t I get any?” Does that sound like someone who “made it with a real woman”? Are you purposefully glossing over all the parts that don’t fit your view of Eric?

• Ahh, we’re finally at the van break-in. I don’t know how much of the description is accurate here, but I’m willing to go along with this version of events.

  The account of how they were caught never fails to make me laugh. Pulling up to a really remote place and checking out your loot isn’t the smartest thing to do, kids. How the hell they never noticed the deputy standing right there is beyond me, but I want to bet that they got a really good scare. (Okay, I am sad that I’ll never get to see the look on their faces as they realised they were busted.)

  Dave says Eric was ‘off his game that night’ with the lying and stuff. I personally think the boys freaked the hell out when they were caught and coming up with a good lie on the spot wasn’t Eric’s major strength. (I think he had a lot of lies in his mind he could tell when he’d get caught with this or that – like with the alcohol and the pipebombs – but that he wasn’t prepared to lie about the break-in just yet.)

• What’s always interested me is how quickly Eric sold Dylan out as being the one to suggest the break-in. I think this is where he ‘recovered’ and began to lie to keep his own ass out of the water again. He did do his best to make himself sound better, but I’m willing to bet you anything that the break-in was a joint decision made in a matter of seconds. Dylan, at least, professed joint blame.

But Eric, too, was keeping something from Dylan.
In the final months, something strange is going on with Eric: he doesn’t write in his journal anymore. After december ‘98, he makes one final short note on April 3rd, two-and-a-half weeks before the shooting. That can only mean one thing: his heart’s not in it anymore. He can’t put his thoughts onto paper anymore. Because then all his doubts would be read.
Angry about all the slights against him, he had gone to shout out that he could shoot and kill all the world and that he didn’t care if he would die himself in the process. Perhaps he felt, like so many other angry boys shouting such things, protected by a sense of certainty that there was no way he was going to do this for real.
Then, that strange Dylan comes along. Who also wants to kill everything, who also doesn’t care that he’s going to die in the process. Unbelievable: he was not completely crazy for thinking such things after all. It is heartattackingly stomachturningly brainburstingly groundmovingly unimaginable – they’re really going to DO IT!
(..)
This is true originality: they are going to create something that’s never been created before. They’re really gods, the world will never forget about him and Vodka ever again. And all that at the cost of nothing: death.
NBK.doc is the champagne with which Eric celebrates.
He begins to make his preparations, happy that Dylan is even more enthusiastic than he is – just look at the four pages in his yearbook! All summer long, throughout the first months of senior year, Eric cheers on. The two times in November where a very light doubt begins to show are things he waves away at once – “Give me goddamn firearms!” When he has acquired those, he shouts like a man in love, like a convert, like an artist who’s found his muse: “THIS is what I want to do with my life!”
That is at the end of November, and also in December he still writes passionately about the plans – after that, however, there is silence. The thought that he’s really going to die begins to penetrate his mind.
It doesn’t take a lot of effort to see many more doubts in Eric.

– Excerpt from We Are But We Are Not Psycho, by Tim Krabbé. This post can be read as a follow-up to the theory stated above.

Also, how do you feel about people who act like an “authority” on Dylan/Eric/Columbine? I appreciate that others will have their own thoughts/feelings & I prefer those who try to educate themselves to make an informed opinion. A lot of the case is still a mystery, however, & w/o knowing the boys personally, much of our analysis is speculation. The info. we have is great, but only goes so far. I’ve noticed a few people act like their views are the be all, end all; as if what they say settles it.

For me, personally, I know that everything I write about the boys and the case is purely my own interpretation and speculation. I will cite sources and related information that back my analysis up if necessary, but that doesn’t mean that I have the monopoly on truth where the case is concerned. I believe strongly in my own views on the case, but I also know that the way I look at it now is not the same as the way I looked at it one year ago. The case evolved and became more complicated the more I read about it. My opinions/feelings/thoughts on the boys and the case change, too, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to the point where I can settle for a specific mindset where this is concerned.

The problem is that we don’t have every inch of information. We are working with half the case at best. A lot of evidence is still under lock and key. Some people aren’t talking. We don’t have things like all the videos, the court dispositions, and the treatment file from Eric’s therapist. We don’t have everything we need in order to have a well-rounded secure view on the case. Even the information we do have at this point in time is usually up for multiple interpretations, so I don’t even think that we can form a steady analysis of the boys or the case that way.

We have never met the boys in person. We don’t know what they were like from day to day, although we do have some statements from people who knew them to help us form a tentative opinion on them. Their journals aren’t a lot of help in this regard either, particularly Eric’s, and a lot of what we think we know about them is purely guesswork based on the sources we do have.

So, how do I feel about people who act like an “authority” on the boys and the case? I don’t think you can get to the point where your say on this ‘settles it’. I do think you can educate yourself as much as possible on what is available to us at this point in time. I certainly recognise that there are quite a few people out there who’ve got a better recollection of the evidence and details from the case than I personally do. I think you can form a pretty steady view of the case and the boys over the course of time, but that this doesn’t mean that you’d be proven right in the end. There is no one true authority about Columbine, imo, but if it makes someone happy to believe they are.. well.. =)

What do you think about people saying that if only Dylan/Eric would have moved away after they graduated they would’ve gotten better? Personally, I think them being in crisis, any little thing might have helped, but, I think when the problem lies mainly within yourself, then it will be w/ you no matter where you go. I think they knew that.

I do think that it would’ve done both some good to get out of Littleton. I don’t think it would’ve solved every problem, but Littleton’s community always gave me the impression that you’d have to conform to their every wish and it would’ve done both boys some good to get away from that pressure to conform. It would not have solved everything.

Dylan would’ve probably done well in college, if he had some help to work through his depression. A change of scenery would’ve done him some good, but you probably know as well as I do that depression sticks with you wherever you go. I think he would’ve been on the verge of crashing down in the early months of college, but that he may have gotten the help he needed that way. I do think that depression would’ve stuck with him all throughout his life, through relapses mostly, and that it would take a lot of work on his part to get to a normal functioning level again.

For Eric, I’ve been toying with the idea of a gap year. I don’t think going to college immediately after graduation would’ve worked for him. He needed time away from the system. Travel and working some odd jobs here and there would’ve done him some good, imo. If he did choose college after that, he would’ve been in a better space through the confidence and experiences the gap year would’ve given him. He’d undoubtedly have to learn how to deal with his anger and his tendency to overreact to ‘rejection’, but perhaps the gap year would’ve given him the frame of mind necessary to do so.

Eric and Dylan seem to have trusted one another until the very end. Nowhere in their journals do they have doubts about whether the other person will want to go through with it, or do they say something unfavourable about the other. But they were deceiving each other.
Dylan starts his journal in March ‘97 – one year earlier than Eric starts his, but around the time Eric starts his website. In that first year, until Eric’s “NBK.doc” from the end of april ’98, Dylan names Eric once, and Eric names him twenty-three times. That one time, Dylan calls him “Eric”, all twenty-three times Eric uses the confidential “Vodka” or the even more confidential “V”.
(..)
In the privacy of his own journal, Eric’s ideas are meaningless to Dylan. His journal doesn’t speak about natural selection, the invalidity of morals, burning the world down to the ground.
Dylan named Eric once in the first year of his journal – in the year after that, he does so thrice. Once as ‘Reb’ in a list of otherwise redacted names; twice as Eric. One instance is a casual remark about the fight between Eric and Zach – the other time is his sigh on January 20th ’99 or shortly thereafter:
“Im stuck in humanity. maybe going "NBK” (gawd) w. eric is the way to break free. i hate this.“
Not only does it mark the first time, eight months after Eric and he decided on their earthshaking mass murder, that he says something about it in his journal; he also speaks guilelessly about the way he sees Eric.
(..)
The ‘gawd’ indicates horror that this is the way it’s going to be – he had dreamed about an NBK with Her. It is almost as if he recoils from using that ‘magical phrase’ NBK in combination with Eric Harris – as though it is sacrilegious to go on and do something so intimate as killing and dying together with him. Eric may be, without knowing it, busy to arrange the halcyon-journey for Dylan, but on this journey itself he is an unwelcome companion.
With this ‘gawd’, Dylan edges closer to writing something unfavourable about Eric than he ever did before.

– Excerpt from We Are But We Are Not Psycho, by Tim Krabbé.

…if you have never thought about shooting up your school, you have never been a teenager, and anyone who says they don’t know what would drive a kid to doing it is either incredibly dense or a horrible liar.

“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Columbine” by Pab Sungenis (via n0rhymen0reason)

BELLA !

Um, thanks? *tentative cheery face*

_{Excerpt from the March 15th, 1999 tape made by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the boys who committed the Columbine High School shooting.}

_{Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are sitting in the Harris home basement-level family room. Eric is sitting on the couch and Dylan’s sitting in a chair nearby. They’re drinking from a Jack Daniels bottle, which Eric points out. The boys begin to discuss a number of topics; they speak of their hope that the videos they’re making will one day be shown all over the world, when their “masterpiece” is done and everyone wants to know why they did it.}

_{Dylan: ”I’d like to make a thank you to Mark John Doe and Phil John Doe. I hope you don’t get fucked.” [Eric laughs. Dylan continues.] “We used them. They had no clue… Don’t blame them. And don’t fucking arrest them. Don’t arrest any of our friends, or family members, or our co-workers. They had no fucking clue. Don’t arrest anyone, because they didn’t have a fucking clue. If it hadn’t been them, it would’ve been someone else over 21.”}

_{They mention the time a clerk from Green Mountain Guns called Eric’s home. Eric’s dad, Wayne Harris, answered the phone. When the clerk told him “Hey, your clips are in.” Wayne — who owned guns himself — told the clerk he hadn’t ordered any clips. Eric said his father never asked whether the caller even had the right phone number. Eric says if either the clerk or his father had asked just one question, “we would have been fucked.”}

_{Dylan: ”We wouldn’t be able to do what we’re going to do.”}

_{The boys talk about the large propane bombs they plan to use on the unsuspecting students in the school cafeteria. They discuss bombs and two containers of “propane and napalm,“ and mention “Mr. Stevens” and the shotgun.}

_{“We’re proving ourselves,” they tell the camera and go on to discuss their philosophies.}

_{Eric says he is avoiding spending time with his family, so that there won’t be any “bonding” and “this won’t be harder to do.“}

_{Eric: ”I’m sorry I have so much rage, but you put it on me.”}

_{Eric then complains about his father and how his family had to move five times. He says he always had to be the new kid in school, and was always at the bottom of the “food chain,” which gave him no chance to earn any respect from his peers, as he always had to “start out at the bottom of the ladder.“ He hated the way people made fun of him: “My face, my hair, my shirts.”}

_{Eric: [Speaking to Dylan, not the camera.] ”More rage. More rage.” [He motions with his hands for emphasis.] “Keep building it on.”}

_{Dylan: ”If you could see all the anger I’ve stored over the past four fucking years…”}

_{Dylan then recalls how popular and athletic his older brother, Byron, was, and how Byron constantly “ripped” on him, as did his brother’s friends. According to Dylan, with the exception of his parents, his extended family treated him like the runt of the litter.}

_{Dylan: ”You made me what I am. You added to the rage.”}

_{Dylan says that as far back as the Foothills Day Care center, he hated the “stuck-up” kids who he felt hated him.}

_{Dylan: “Being shy didn’t help. I’m going to kill you all. You’ve been giving us shit for years.“}

“Klebold followed Harris wherever Harris went,” as witnesses stated.
But when journalists saw the Basement Tapes, that vision changed. According to some, it was Dylan who seemed to be the dominant figure (the ‘psycho’ of the two) on those. He talked more often, seemed more determined, appeared to be the biggest hater. “Contrary to popular opinion,” writes the Denver Post, “it is Harris who comes across as the most sympathetic of the two. He was seen in the first few days as angry and weird, but here he is apologetic and somewhat remorseful. (..) Klebold is monstrous on those tapes, raging on about his lifelong hidden anger and all the slights he suffered at the hands of his fellow students, teachers, and family. (..) He shows no contrition, just deadly aggression.”
Years later, in 2006 when the journals of the two were released, that monstrosity took on a different meaning. Then it became clear what Dylan was really like, when nobody else was around: pathetic, down, interested in nothing but his misery and his reunion in death with an imaginary soulmate – not even the shooting mattered to him. It is this side that he kept hidden from Eric. His monstrosity was an act – it was showing off, begging for acceptance, the price he had to pay for his ticket to the halcyon. He misled Eric.
But he misled everyone. (..) On the Diversion list with thirty problems, of which Eric noted fourteen as being relevant to himself, Dylan only ticked two: money and jobs, exactly the two things that said nothing about himself. The Diversion-people swallowed the story; in the three-quarter year he had to deal with them, Dylan knew how to keep the kookiness of his journal hidden from them completely. Just like he hid it from his parents, his friends, the entire school. And from Eric.

– Excerpt from We Are But We Are Not Psycho, by Tim Krabbé.