The Smallest Of Them All

The Jungle

The hall was clearing faster than her heart was racing, she could hear it pounding like an African drum. Her nail beds were picked raw and the nail’s paint job was ruined. Breathing ragged and cheeks flushed a light pink, Birdie knew she had to do it. Today, just like she had planned the night before. It had to be today.

Tearing her eyes away from her prey, she emptied her bag into her locker, replacing it with her next periods textbooks. Eyeballing her full, brown paper bag of a lunch, Birdie closed her eyes for a moment. Zipping her backpack all the way up, she slammed her locker with strength.

Adjusting her straps, she looked herself down before leaving her post. Dirty white Keds, faded black leggings and an old sweater with a tiny whale in the corner. She could still smell the scent of her mother’s perfume lingering on her neck and wrists. She went a little crazy with it before her mother scolded her for wasting it all. “It’s not like it’s going to help you,” she told her seventeen year old daughter.

Birdie leaned against the maroon colored locker, the coolness chilling her shoulder. She eyed her subject once again. It’s mane shone brightly under the light of the hall, baring it’s saber teeth in pride. It’s own kind was dispersing as the final bell rung, now was her time to act.

Squaring her chest, she took careful steps down the way, flicking her eyes from the floor tiles back up to her target. Slow, thinking about the crime she was about to commit and the possible repercussions after. Birdie thought about this moment all day, how it would turn out and what reactions she would receive. Only daydreaming of the positives, she psyched herself up all morning long.

Finally reaching her destination, her feet halted and her breath caught. Being so close to something so godly was spectacular. Her fingers somehow found themselves curled into a fist and her fist retracted into her sleeve.

Tucking a hair behind her ear, she swallowed a pound of fear, finally speaking for the first time all day, “H-hey.”

Closing his locker, he swung his bag over his right shoulder, “Sup”, he said before following his pack down the never ending hallway. He never even looked Birdie in the eyes.

-

Write about a moment, a single moment, in the span of a minute and thirty seconds. 

-TaylorMarie