The clock could not be ticking any slower.
I know every other student in the classroom is thinking the same thing as I stare at its hands, almost forgetting to blink.
Every exam paper has been handed in. Every student has either completed it or given up the answers they could not remember. But even as the teenagers spare no effort to conceal their rising tempers at being kept from their summer breaks, which begin right outside the door, the teacher does nothing to indicate that we'll be allowed to leave until the end of the allotted exam time.
Sure enough, I can almost feel annoyance and excitement building up behind me, ready to tumble into a chaotic exit, as every student stares at the ugly, cat-head clock.
The monstrous thing first came into my world when a prank gone wrong caused the old, regular clock to shatter. Long story short: teenagers can convince little boys to do almost anything with sufficient candy bribery, little boys have bad aim, and nerf bullets tend to knock things off from the walls. The student responsible was to replace the clock, and oh, did he. I guess teenagers refuse to cede entirely to punishment by responding with petty, halfwitted compromises. But that isn't news.
That isn't to say I haven't enjoyed the thing. Kitty-Cat Tick-Tock has been with us for quite a while now, taunting us with that kitty-cat smile and that cocky tick-tock during school's hours, during endless lectures and tests and note-taking. But now it's all coming to an end.
Well, at least for three months.
Sighing through my nose, I lower my eyes from Kitty-Cat Tick-tock. Two minutes.
The world outside the window is bright, ripe for the taking; and everyone in my class seems to be ready to do just that. Everybody already has plans, parties, invitations. Camp, sports, vacations, family time and time for their big romantic adventures, which will surely last as long as the summer itself. Some students even talk about checking down firsts. First time getting high, having sex, driving a car, and all the other teenage memories. Those are things of joy and things of embarrassment and shame, things that in a few years will be memories to them. Those are things for people who intend to live out their lives, or don't worry about their lives' validity or solidity at all. Those things —the sneaking out past curfew and the teenage adventures, the regrets and mistakes happening under flashes of impulse—... those are things that aren't for me.
No, I think to myself, squinting at that brightness outside the window as the bell finally rings and chairs screech loudly against the floor, they aren't.
Exhaustion and a mild numbness anchoring me to the chair, I watch my classmates run towards the threshold, toward those plans and those firsts, and say goodbye to each one in my mind, with a strange sadness. Not exactly fondness, but rather something apologetic, a feeling that brings pressure around my throat. And I'm not sure why, but I wish them good luck. For those memories, theirs for the making in a world theirs for the taking. And they can have it. It was never mine, anyway.
During the school year, I have requirements I'm expected to meet. I have schedules and grades to obtain, things to study. But in the summer, where there is nothing but me, and my own presence and thoughts...
Nothing but me, alone, unlimited... who knows what I could do.
And once more, I know that every teenager now rushing out through the door into the open summer is thinking that same thing. But in a very different way.
In the light of the sun, sitting in its apex in the vibrantly blue sky, it's easy to see my veins through the skin of my wrist. There, my lifeblood flows, a phantom pain pushing against it, as if in suggestion, in echo from a future bound to unfold.
Indeed, nothing but me, alone, unlimited; who knows what I could do.
Before I leave, I make sure to glance at Kitty-Cat Tick-Tock once last time, and when I walk out, it feels as though the clock was announcing that something is about to change. For the first time, and forever.
YOU ARE READING
Asunder
Teen Fiction"Promise me. Promise me you'll never beg someone to stay when they're already gone." Tangled up a million knots, Kingsley has lost faith in happiness. Her heavy heart struggles to continue to beat, and she is slowing down. It seems to her that the w...
