Invisible

Chapter 3

One by one, I sat and watched for hours as every student, teacher and staff member left the school. The janitors were finishing up and putting their supplies away. One by one, they shut off every light in the building until nearly everything was dark. One by one, they locked every door. Then they left, and I stood alone in the emptiness.

The the silence gave me peace of mind. I layed down in the center of the hallway and took it all in. The beauty of silent darkness felt blissfully relaxing, helping to ease my sorrow a bit. I got up and began to wander around the school. The dark hallways loomed ahead of me like haunted corridors. I walked around for awhile.

The moonlight poured gently into every classroom I saw, making them look somehow new. The bathrooms were especially dark and frightened me when I looked inside. They were nearly pitch black, which for some unknown reason made me nervous.

I walked away from the bathroom and approached a nearby door and tried to open it. The handle wouldn't budge or even shake, no matter how hard I pressed it. Could it be stuck? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a desk and suddenly, an idea popped into my mind. I aligned myself with the desk. I gathered my strength and threw myself into the desk with as much energy as I could. I felt the desk collide with me, but I felt no pain at all. Just the presence of the chair as a physical barrier. The chair didn't budge either.

Frantically, I ran around the hallway knocking into desks and grabbing at posters. Nothing moved. I had no influence over the physical world anymore, and for some reason that God only knows, that fact broke my heart. I collapsed on the hard floor, which felt strangely comfortable, and closed my vision.
That's what I call that phenomenon now. Since I can't close my eyes, but I can block my vision as though I could, I called it "closing my vision". It sounds strange I know, but it just felt right.

Dark and wild thoughts raced through my mind. One would think that after such a traumatic event, I would want to place blame on anyone or anything other than myself. I could easily have blamed the coach for my death, for pushing me too hard.

Instead, I couldn't help but to place all of my pent-up anger and hatred on myself. I blamed myself for my death, but also my life. I'm the one who pushed me to the breaking point. I'm the one who even decided track would be a good idea, despite my naturally weak physique. I'm the one who broke my own heart, literally. I'm the one who was never good at anything, not school, not sports, not art, not even being a decent person. I hate myself.

I laid there for days it seemed. I felt though I could fall asleep at any moment, yet the sleep never came. I just laid there in a state of half-consiousness and half-sleep. I probably could have layed there forever if I tried.