Elijah's eyes

Wake up

Early morning. Tom is awakened by the blaring sound of his alarm clock. It seems as though it's intent on driving anyone within a 10-meter radius crazy. Despite his best efforts to ignore it and fall back asleep, he can't seem to shake the sound. Eventually, he gives in and gets out of bed.

Everything is hazy as he makes his way to his desk to turn off his alarm. He realizes it's not the best idea to stay up late the previous evening playing games with his friends. Now, he can barely keep his eyes open.

He searches for his glasses, which he remembers throwing on his desk in frustration after losing a game. He finds them under the desk and is relieved to see they're unbroken. But, as he glances at the clock, he realizes he should have woken up 30 minutes ago. He's missed his previous five alarms.

He hears his mother's voice, "WAKE UP ALREADY! How much more do I have to yell at you?" He quickly enters "hyper-fast" mode, running to the bathroom. He comes out, his face covered in toothpaste, but grabs a towel to wipe it clean before returning to his room to change into his school uniform. He grabs his bag and phone, which he had left on his bedside table.

He hurries downstairs to the kitchen where his mother is waiting with a furious look on her face. He quickly grabs a sandwich and wolfs it down in a matter of seconds, before throwing the remaining sandwich into his bag. He rushes to the door but immediately hears his mother's voice, "Tom... your face." He turns around, sees the toothpaste on his face, runs back to the sink, splashes water on his face, then immediately wipes it with the first towel he finds. As he comes out, his mother voice is heard again, " Tom... your face". "What now? " he says quite annoyed. His mother reply was short, " You're just ugly."

He runs to the front door, looks towards his mother and smiles as he says: "That's your fault," with a smirk not before seeing his mother's frustrated face trying to understand what he meant. From outside, Tom heard her screams "Thomas!!!", a sign that she finally understood.

-----

The road to school that morning was very short, most likely because Tom exceeded the legal speed limit on his bike, even though that probably doesn't exist. Arriving in front of the high school, he realized how late he was by the simple fact that everything was deserted, meaning that everyone was in classes. Except for the school's rebel boys who considered that their only reason for coming to school was to not be bored at home. Even so, this morning, even their number was quite low, barely one entering the school's bathroom or two in the hallway.

Tom walked quickly to his class, hoping that maybe the teacher hadn't come or maybe he was also very late. But his hopes were dashed when he reached the door. He could only hear a strong voice coming from inside. He would rather wait for the end of the class than face the embarrassment that this event would cause. What would be the cost? One absence, no big deal. But then Tom thought that this act would be one of cowardice and that he needed to pay for sleeping too much by enduring the embarrassment. He put his hand on the handle. He still had thoughts of retreat. But it's too late, in one way or another, he opened the door. The noise it made attracted all attention to him, excluding those who slept in the back of the class. Professor Smith, the physics teacher, looked at him out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, well, look who decided to wake up in the end, our beloved Thomas."

"I apologize for being late," said Tom with his head down and his voice trembling.

"It would be a shame if you didn't apologize. Tell me, did you do the homework for today? Who knows, maybe you did it this morning and that's why you were late."

Tom remembered that last night he had planned to do his homework, but he never got around to it.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't finish it."

"I think you haven't even started it. See, there's no point in wasting my precious time with you, maybe there are some people in this class who actually want to do something in their lives and not be lazy and dirty like you. I'll turn your absence into a grade of two. You may leave."

Tom, after such a embarrassment, didn't dare look at his classmates. But once he gets to his seat, he couldn't help but notice the one next to him who could hardly hold back from laughing.

"Stop it, Jason," whispered Tom, "you know it's your fault that you kept me up late."

"It was 'totally worth' it," said Jason, barely able to speak because if he opened his mouth, he felt that he would release such a powerful laughter that it would also be transformed into a grade of two.

Tom sketched a smile too, he realized how embarrassing the situation was. Then he noticed that there were other absentees, among them also Anna.

The rest of the class went by very hard, as if Tom hadn't been late for 20 minutes. He struggled to catch up on everything he had lost during this time, because at one point he gave up and decided to draw something in his notebook to kill some of the remaining time. The sound of the bell at the end of class was much more pleasant than that of the annoying alarm. Smith left the class but not before looking at Tom with contempt. After he disappeared, Anna came into the class. Anna was a striking figure in the classroom, with her long, wavy brown hair that cascaded down her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face. She had big, sparkling green eyes that seemed to light up whenever she smiled, which was often. Her smile was warm and inviting, revealing a set of perfectly aligned white teeth. Her skin was creamy and smooth, with a hint of a blush on her cheeks. She had a tall and slender figure, and always carried herself with poise and grace. She was known to be the most popular girl in class, and her beauty, intelligence and kindness made her a favorite among her classmates and teachers. Tom couldn't help but be smitten by her, and as he sat in his bench, he couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"Careful, your drool is running out of your mouth, you hot stallion," said Jason with tears in his eyes, laughing so hard, probably having waited all class to release it this way.

"I hate you, get out of my life..."

"You'll hate me more when you'll hear that Math is next and guess what, another homework we forgot about."