Stuck

The hallways at high-schools always have that particular smell. It’s nearly non-existent, yet if it is compared to the smell of home - which usually is only noticed after a rather long vacation, when the front door is finally open and all the stress caused by the long, exhausting journey home, waiting at the airport security check or finally being released and then hasting to the gate to catch the flight, suddenly has vanished and a feeling of ease, love and care settles deeply in the heart – it bears a significant characteristic like no other.

Just thinking about the heavy, sometimes unpleasant odor of friend’s houses, which oddly always smelled like soup, spicy and salty, or the particular sweet and slightly stuffy smell of old, overused perfume, we all know from our grandparent’s house, where we all feel secure and loved, always welcomed to just escape from our busy everyday lives and take a careful look into how the former days used to be. And of course to be spoiled with freshly baked cookies and our favorite dinner.

These scents cause sensations in the human being that the mind associates with particular feelings. And though the smell of high-school hallways isn’t heavy, the significance of the feeling it evokes is undeniable. The nearly non-existent traces of cleaning-supplies mixed with the intermingled scents of people just walking by, passing each other, and the slight smell of old, squeaky linoleum, hovering like an invisible mist just above the floor, bears something unique which is just associated with all the different sentiments that make high school exactly what it is. High School.

Perhaps it was this particular smell that always made it hard for me to succumb to the usual shallow social game that High School presented. The friendships that lasted as long as everything was fine and then broke like a stick never to be repaired again, because they didn’t mean anything. Yet if the friendships were as numerous as the trees in a forest, why bother indeed.

Perhaps it was exactly that smell of fright, of change, of finding ones own way, that had brought me here, in front of a row of run-down lockers, covered in dark green paint that left, seemingly randomly, large silver patches, where the paint peeled off, with rusty hinges that protested with every move they were forced into, screeching in easily overlooked agony.

The floor, an ugly shade of red with small black and white patches, the linoleum just as worn as the lockers and just as much protesting as the hinges, while rubber squeaked high pitched with every step that was taken.

The doors, made of wood too indefinable in contour and shade to be recognized or to belong to any natural wood such as oak or birch, the small windows clean yet blurry to the sight and the hinges covered in dust, the oil binding it to the metal as if the dust was its prisoner, not allowed to leave until it was completely worn out. The doorknobs squealed with every turn they had to endure, begging to be removed from office soon and be put to rest peacefully.

The people, covered in colorful clothing, yet all seemingly the same, sometimes even outdoing themselves in their need to fit in and be as everyone else whereas at the same time they all liked to pretend that they were individuals and wish to be treated as one, yet they are repulsed if one does so. The indefinable voices buzzing young, full of excitement, spite, of hopes and disappointments, complaining and schmoozing through the hallways, accompanied by the steps echoing confident, shallow, self-assured and self-conscious from the ugly walls.

Those ugly walls that were painted a light shade of yellow that had turned grey in the corners and above the lockers, where no one ever bothered to take a closer look and notice the change of color. Yet they were the only thing not complaining about anything. They were silent. They treated everyone the same way.

The lockers with their rusty hinges hampered people differently, depending on their degree of decomposition.

The doorknobs allowed themselves to be turned by nine people without difficulties, yet the tenth had a hard time opening the door.

The people judged everyone on shallow characteristics, treating them either with respect or spite.

The only thing staying neutral were the walls, allowing everyone to fulfill their deepest, most secret desire to be treated just as anyone else.

They didn’t judge, yet they succumbed to the disrespectfulness of students, pressing their dirty shoes against the wall while leaning against them, patching announcements against it even though there were designated black boards for things like that, scratched their hard-cover books against the walls, leaving ugly, long drawn notches in the yellow paint.
In my eyes they had more right to complain than anybody, yet they stayed silent, not able to make a sound. Perhaps that was the way it was supposed to be. Perhaps those who had to endure the most, always stayed silent, never fought back, were pushed around without doing anything wrong. And perhaps they allowed it, because they couldn’t make a move.