Flawless: Gazelle [COMPLETE]

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

The gates of the school have become foreign to me. In the short week that I had skipped school to contemplate my options, the officials had taken up the torturous task of repainting the iron bars, and the gates now bore a dark shade of blue, resembling the midnight sky. The sudden notion of repainting was due to the fact that the principal wanted to cover the symbolic graffiti that had been accumulated throughout the years.

I missed the random curses engraved on the metal bars, the ones that used to remind me of the fact that there were others like me.

As I made my way through the caging bars of the prison-cell-like gates, I dented its smooth exterior with a scratch of my scraggly nails, bitten raw with anxiety. I would leave a mark as well, to remind others that everything, no matter how perfect, had a flaw. They could paint over it again and again, but I knew that it would always be there, unmoving, perpetual like darkness.

*****

During English literature, I found myself wide awake and wanting to scream at my teacher, Mrs Macbeth, for all her droning. A look around the classroom told me no one was really paying attention, some heads nodding, drifting off, and some fingers flying across phone keyboards, texting furiously. In a sense, I pitied Mrs Macbeth for having to teach us disrespectful hooligans, but not enough to actually listen. She was veering off topic more and more as each second passed. In what alternate universe would the tragic Hamlet be related to happiness and prosperity?

She was in the midst of rambling heatedly on the idea that everyone on the planet had something to fight for, in which she proceeded afterward to tell us how many people in the world were happy and how many were, well... not.

"53 percent of the entire Earth's population claim themselves to be happy, whilst 31 percent claim to be neutral, and the final 13 percent unhappy. Poverty and corruption are growing problems in our society, yet a majority of the population are still pleased with their existence. Why is this so? It is because everyone has hope in the future. I hope to win the lottery someday, and to have grandchildren. You might hope for beauty, or happiness, or simply good grades. This shows that what makes you happy doesn't depend on the situation, it depends on your attitude towards that particular scenario."

Scraping a pie chart onto the blackboard with her tattered piece of white chalk, she asked each of us to walk forward and determine which part we believed we were in.

That caught my wavering attention, and I hesitantly turned to the board. When it was finally my turn, I stepped out of my seat tantalizingly, tortuously slowly, even though, without a doubt, I already knew the answer in my head. Inching towards the front of the room, I picked up a new, unused, blue piece of chalk, and added one more section hastily and sloppily to the present chart. Seeing Mrs Macbeth's speculative raised eyebrow, I explained my predicament.

"With all due respect, Mrs Myrtle Macbeth, there was a slight error in your chart. 53%+13%+31%=97%. Where did the remaining 3% go? Thankfully, I have done some research prior to this lesson, and learnt that 3% of the Earth's population are alive, but not necessarily living, you could say. They are not suicidal, yet they do not feel the urge to live wholeheartedly. In other words, a part of their soul had died, perhaps due to a tragic accident of the past, or the person's inability to be optimistic and happy after their respective incidents. They feel as though the world has betrayed them, disappointed them. They have great unsought potential that had yet to be brought to life by a nonexistent miraculous opportunity. The universe has disappointed these particular individuals, for it is difficult to recover from having everything to sudden losing it all. These people could have been great, influential people, but their daunting past that taunts them each day holds them captive. The only way for them to be freed by such a sinister bond is for them to see the sun. But alas, how can one see the sun when he is blindfolded?" I delivered the monologue with such indifference and calmness that it seemed to have troubled Mrs Macbeth. Laughing nervously, she nudged her spectacles up her nose.

"Why, dear, and how would know this to be true? One cannot possibly understand such deep thoughts without first-hand experience."

I had expected this long-awaited question, and answered politely without hesitation, "Because I fit seamlessly into that category."

Mrs Macbeth believed me to be overdramatic, but I was requested to elaborate on my queer point.

"Everyone has talent. I was also born with a specific ability. With each passing day, I grew and blossomed into a young girl. Until the day someone left me, and abandoned me to fend for myself. I had one companion with me, but she was evanescent like the wind, and before I knew it, she had left me too. Hope is vital for leading a meaningful life, but it is one of the many things I lack. I strongly believe that hope is there to let you down. If I don't hope, I'm simply bracing myself for the inevitable fall, with no one there to catch me. Hoping brings you up onto cloud nine, but clouds are nothing but drops of water that will soon splash onto the ground."

On that bright and happy note, I strode back to my seat, leaving the rest of the class gaping, and savoring in the deafening silence that shadowed my speech.

"Class," Mrs Macbeth voiced quietly, "I'd like you all to think again. Think about your responses. Think deep. Think hard. Class dismissed."