Status: Gettin' there.
Sid and the Last Five Years
It's Fine.
The puddles became lakes, dirt became mud, and light became dark. The thunder roared outside, the lightning flickered like a little kid playing with a light-switch. I rest my head on the cold floor in my room, and stared up at the plain, tasteless ceiling.
*
“Where does the road end? Does Tom grow as a person? Does he abandon his boyhood?”
I didn't want to listen to this, I had skimmed the book, and tossed it to the side like an unappetizing dinner or meal. The kids who had read their literature and analyzed the book with great depth, had their hands raised high in the stuffy air, proud they were prudent and positive of the answer. Most of the kids who answered, mainly girls, said he had transformed into this great and beautiful human being, inside and out, sighting scenes from the book that proved their theory right.
“How about you?” I saw her eyes focus sternly on the red headed girl in the corner, hiding her face from onlookers, yet clear to see everyone else's cruel face. That girl, of course was me. “Elli? What do you think of the end of the novel?” I didn't think anything. I thought of Eric. I thought of my mother. I thought of Sid. I thought of Dad. But I certainly did not think of the stupid little boy parading around in fantasy land, I thought of reality and examined that as I could, grasping this life and trying to understand THAT- So no, Ms. Andreq, I did not think of Tom Sawyer at all, it was too hard to function the normal things as it was.
“He's alright,” I muttered. She lowered her face, and squinted a bit, as if it would affect what she had just heard. I knew that look well, it was the 'second chance' look, willing for me to try again and apply what I knew to the world. “I mean, what do you want me to say?” I complained. “Sure, he develops into a better person, grows this conscience and starts to care about people. It's obvious he cares about his aunt, and Huck, and of course Becky, his love interest, but at the end he just goes back to his juvenile ways. He plans to rob people. He goes right back to where he started from, the only difference is, he's richer.”
A few girls laughed and scoffed at the insincerity of my answer, the wording in which I spoke, how stupid I had been to actually give into Ms. Andreq's pressure and attempt to answer something that I knew nothing about. Yet, instead of the drawn-out lecture I had expected, I got a the revelation of her pearly whites and a slight nodding of the head. “Very good,” she said. As if I were embarrassed, I stuffed my head behind the book once more, but peeked out at everyone else who had answered, they were quiet, and staring at me. It was as if I had never spoken up before, but I can't remember the last time I had. For once, the feeling I had reflected in everyone else; surprise.
I looked outside, and the rain had ceased.
After class, I continued on to my locker, dodging the determined children, grades below me, who rushed to their own lockers. Brutally, I got tossed and turned within the storm of children, lost in a tornado of people, and fell against my locker. My face lit up red, flushed, my lips down-turned, my stomach fell with my heart, I stood up, I pushed a boy the weight and height of a toothpick to the side, I pushed a girl the same size to the opposite side, I pushed through the hallway, I slammed a girl my age against the wall for no reason, she dropped her books, I stepped on a blonde girl's school work that had been thrown along the floors. I got pushed to the side again. I blanked.
That five minutes I still cannot picture in my head, I have no foggy view of memory; I have no recollection of anything that occurred within the five minutes. When I 'awoke' I was sitting on the floor of the hallway, and a crowd of people I couldn't recognize surrounded me with dropped jaws. I looked at them with a look of confusion, and then directed my attention to the girl who had dropped her papers. It wasn't a girl at all, it was a woman; it was Ms. Andreq. Her hand clasped to her side, she did not move, but she did not cry. Her lips were shaking with fear, yet somehow I do not believe anyone else saw this, because from a person who had not pegged her into the woman she was, she looked rather composed.
“You, you kicked her.”
-Don't eat me, don't eat me.-
I realized she was thinking the same thing.
Sid appeared in the distance of the hallway, laughing in hysterics and crying as he did so. Although, instead of his usual apparel of raggedy, rotten jeans and a shirtless exposed chest, he was dressed in the finest of clothing, a black tuxedo fit for a banquet. His hair was the same greasy, long, black nest it had been before, he had the same dark eyes and ashy gray complexion, just the same man in a tie-less tux. My mouth couldn't form the words to apologize; my body was tense.
“Come on,” I felt a hand at my side, that should have been at Ms. Andreq's. My eyes were latched onto hers, hoping and wishing for forgiveness in a land that was a war of madness. Whatever reputation I had had as quiet or shy was now: merciless.
The hand that had been near me the entire time propped under my armpit and pulled me up to the normal level I should have achieved by now. In normal reality, I should have been near Ms. Andreq apologizing profusely for the crime I had committed. “Go,” she said with a straight face, “it's fine.” She shooed off the children trying to help her, and urged them to go catch their buses while they had the time. As I left the building, she leaned against the school wall, pain throughout her body.
The legs I possessed felt like tin, as if I could not walk. Eric walked me outside, it was him, by my side. And Sid was on the other.
*
“Where does the road end? Does Tom grow as a person? Does he abandon his boyhood?”
I didn't want to listen to this, I had skimmed the book, and tossed it to the side like an unappetizing dinner or meal. The kids who had read their literature and analyzed the book with great depth, had their hands raised high in the stuffy air, proud they were prudent and positive of the answer. Most of the kids who answered, mainly girls, said he had transformed into this great and beautiful human being, inside and out, sighting scenes from the book that proved their theory right.
“How about you?” I saw her eyes focus sternly on the red headed girl in the corner, hiding her face from onlookers, yet clear to see everyone else's cruel face. That girl, of course was me. “Elli? What do you think of the end of the novel?” I didn't think anything. I thought of Eric. I thought of my mother. I thought of Sid. I thought of Dad. But I certainly did not think of the stupid little boy parading around in fantasy land, I thought of reality and examined that as I could, grasping this life and trying to understand THAT- So no, Ms. Andreq, I did not think of Tom Sawyer at all, it was too hard to function the normal things as it was.
“He's alright,” I muttered. She lowered her face, and squinted a bit, as if it would affect what she had just heard. I knew that look well, it was the 'second chance' look, willing for me to try again and apply what I knew to the world. “I mean, what do you want me to say?” I complained. “Sure, he develops into a better person, grows this conscience and starts to care about people. It's obvious he cares about his aunt, and Huck, and of course Becky, his love interest, but at the end he just goes back to his juvenile ways. He plans to rob people. He goes right back to where he started from, the only difference is, he's richer.”
A few girls laughed and scoffed at the insincerity of my answer, the wording in which I spoke, how stupid I had been to actually give into Ms. Andreq's pressure and attempt to answer something that I knew nothing about. Yet, instead of the drawn-out lecture I had expected, I got a the revelation of her pearly whites and a slight nodding of the head. “Very good,” she said. As if I were embarrassed, I stuffed my head behind the book once more, but peeked out at everyone else who had answered, they were quiet, and staring at me. It was as if I had never spoken up before, but I can't remember the last time I had. For once, the feeling I had reflected in everyone else; surprise.
I looked outside, and the rain had ceased.
After class, I continued on to my locker, dodging the determined children, grades below me, who rushed to their own lockers. Brutally, I got tossed and turned within the storm of children, lost in a tornado of people, and fell against my locker. My face lit up red, flushed, my lips down-turned, my stomach fell with my heart, I stood up, I pushed a boy the weight and height of a toothpick to the side, I pushed a girl the same size to the opposite side, I pushed through the hallway, I slammed a girl my age against the wall for no reason, she dropped her books, I stepped on a blonde girl's school work that had been thrown along the floors. I got pushed to the side again. I blanked.
That five minutes I still cannot picture in my head, I have no foggy view of memory; I have no recollection of anything that occurred within the five minutes. When I 'awoke' I was sitting on the floor of the hallway, and a crowd of people I couldn't recognize surrounded me with dropped jaws. I looked at them with a look of confusion, and then directed my attention to the girl who had dropped her papers. It wasn't a girl at all, it was a woman; it was Ms. Andreq. Her hand clasped to her side, she did not move, but she did not cry. Her lips were shaking with fear, yet somehow I do not believe anyone else saw this, because from a person who had not pegged her into the woman she was, she looked rather composed.
“You, you kicked her.”
-Don't eat me, don't eat me.-
I realized she was thinking the same thing.
Sid appeared in the distance of the hallway, laughing in hysterics and crying as he did so. Although, instead of his usual apparel of raggedy, rotten jeans and a shirtless exposed chest, he was dressed in the finest of clothing, a black tuxedo fit for a banquet. His hair was the same greasy, long, black nest it had been before, he had the same dark eyes and ashy gray complexion, just the same man in a tie-less tux. My mouth couldn't form the words to apologize; my body was tense.
“Come on,” I felt a hand at my side, that should have been at Ms. Andreq's. My eyes were latched onto hers, hoping and wishing for forgiveness in a land that was a war of madness. Whatever reputation I had had as quiet or shy was now: merciless.
The hand that had been near me the entire time propped under my armpit and pulled me up to the normal level I should have achieved by now. In normal reality, I should have been near Ms. Andreq apologizing profusely for the crime I had committed. “Go,” she said with a straight face, “it's fine.” She shooed off the children trying to help her, and urged them to go catch their buses while they had the time. As I left the building, she leaned against the school wall, pain throughout her body.
The legs I possessed felt like tin, as if I could not walk. Eric walked me outside, it was him, by my side. And Sid was on the other.