Like A Firing Line

And we’re all standing here in a row, tightly clutching books and papers and laptops. And they’re pacing back and forth in front of us, waiting and watching. Chucking the occasional study guide and project at us.

Their eyes dart to each of us, and they stare. Our eyes flick to our fellow sufferers, and we wonder.

Who’s going to collapse first?

We are pressed up against the brick walls of our school, in a virtual firing line.
It’s finals week, and the pressure is on.

Who’s going to collapse first?
Is it the boy who chose to spend his Thanksgiving break with family and football?
Is it the girl who spent her time planning for Black Friday?
Is it the boy who chose to get more than four hours of sleep?
Is it the girl who spent her time writing, instead of studying?

And who will give up? Who will throw their hands in the air, step forward, and let the bullet rip through their chest?
They won’t die, because this a special type of firing line. Instead of killing you, it kills your grades. Your hopes . Your dreams. Your future.
And thus works the American school system.

Look. Look at her. She’s glancing around shiftily, she’s sneaking towards the door and…she’s down for the count.
Down for the count with a big F on her chest, a satisfied teacher blowing the smoke off her pen.
Hello, minimum wage job.
Because that’s what they tell us. They tell us that all that matters is this. That colleges will see these grades, and if you get less than an A…
They don’t fill in that ominous silence. They leave it for our imagination.

Maybe it’s not a question of who will collapse first…it’s a question of who will collapse last?

Passerby look at the bedraggled row with sympathy, remembering their own time in that line. Little kids scamper closely, examining the curious specimen that is a high school student during finals week. Teachers shoo them away, checking the time by checking the dark rings underneath a highschooler’s eyes; the darker, the more, the rings, the closer to finals we are.

A bell tolls once, twice…and it’s time. Pens are raised and leveled at the students, as they scribble quickly, flipping through official final paper.

A’s through F’s are fired, the resulting smoke a grim pallor over the celebrating students…and the silent, grim ones.

The failures.

The carcasses being dragged by their friends out of the bloodless arena.

And people are jumping up and down, high fiving, and dancing all around their graves.

Best years of our life…or a wonderful display of the human ability to forget, gloss over, and sentimentalize?

You decide.

But decide quick…because the pens have you in their sights now.

And yes, there will be a quiz on this.