"Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go," wrote the great English bard. Today thousands of young people fantasize about exploding with rage -- rage which could be soothed by even one adult's attention. Russell Morse, 18, writes for YO! Youth Outlook, a newspaper by and about young people published by Pacific News Service. (Second of four essays by YO! writers on the "losers" of Littleton. The first two will run today, the last two will run on Friday.)

SAN FRANCISCO-- Taunted as "freaks," "outcasts", "weirdos," two boys opened fire in Littleton, Co., killing more than a dozen of their classmates. One girl said that all the taunting and name calling was "just stupid teenage stuff."

For those who are viewed as square pegs in round holes, the confusion of not belonging is enough to prompt the fantasy of killing those who reinforce such ideas.

I know I sat in many biology classes reading Kerouac and estimating how much plastic explosive it might take to reduce my biggest source of fear and anxiety (the schoolhouse) to rubble. I looked at my tormentors and longed to see them beg me for mercy (maybe even with a gun in their mouths). To have the upper hand, the power, the control over them was what excited me.

Was I a sick person in need of immediate psychological assessment? Was I a rare, warped mind among millions of high school students who dealt with their frustrations more constructively (i.e. smoking pot, playing the violin)? I don't think so. My belief is that there are thousands who think just as I did and the only difference between us and the boys from Littleton is that they acted on their fantasies.

Today I still wonder why I was targeted for torment. Sure, I was a little eccentric -- quoting William Burroughs in drug awareness class and flicking boogers at a pretty girl -- but did that warrant years of torture and harassment? If only I had known then that the beautiful, trendy people who made my life so difficult only did so because of their own insecurities, I might have fared better and not even been in a position to imagine a doomsday massacre. Maybe if I had more people tell me that they loved me and that I was a beautiful person, too -- even though I was different -- I may not have spent so many years isolated and afraid. Maybe that's all Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold needed.

An insightful choir teacher said that the boys were "extremely bright, but not good students." Before a Danish prince with similar characteristics went on a killing spree of his own to avenge his father's murder, the boy's uncle (and recently appointed King) commented, "Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go". I went unwatched. Ted Kazcinski went unwatched. So did Eric and Dylan.

And maybe someone called Charles Whitman, a weirdo when he was a freshman in high school. His guidance counselor thought little of it when he started spending a lot of time in bell towers.

I'm not trying to put blame on anyone, whether it be adolescent bullies or inattentive adults. I'm just saying that in every high school across the country there exists at least one young man or woman with the potential to bring about this kind of disaster. And we act baffled when things like this happen, paralyzed with fear and unable to formulate any kind of response or prevention.