The Soft Glow in the Dead of the Night (Part 1 - History Unedited)

Chapter 3 - Roman

Roman's alarm woke him up. He rolled over and heard a thud as something fell onto the floor. He looked over at the book on the floor, he must have fallen asleep reading it, although he had no memory of reading anything other than the title.

His mum called up the stairs. Quickly, he got washed and dressed. His school uniform was hanging on the back of his chair waiting for him. He grabbed the book and placed it in his bag. Hopeful that he would be able to get some extra reading time in between lessons.

He ran downstairs, grabbed some toast and left for school. His mum trusted him to actually walk to school by himself today. He was planning on keeping his promise of going in today. He needed to stay up to date with what work he could. The anxiety of getting behind outweighed the anxiety of going to school, not by much though.

The morning was fresh and the sun lit the tiny stones on the concrete as he walked. A few puddles still remained from yesterday's rain, he carefully avoided stepping in them.

"Out of the way freak!"

A bike narrowly missed him, but Roman was sure they weren't aiming for him. Instead they rode through a puddle, splashing water up at him. His trousers were wet, but he was pretty used to this.

He walked through the gate to the school and straight to the toilets. He turned on the hand dryer and blew the hot air onto his trousers. He was thankful the toilets were empty so there was no one in here to laugh at him. He could imagine what inventful ways they would use to tease him.

The bell for form rang through the hallways. He walked out of the toilets and into the waves of bodies that swept him through the corridor like a bottle swept from the sand by the sea. He pushed against the current to take the next turning on his left. Squeezing through, he broke free from the crowd. A trickle of students walked up the stairs with him. He was glad to have some room to breathe.

His form was in the art department, which meant climbing two flights of stairs. This early in the morning was not the time to be climbing that many stairs. By the time he reached the top his legs were burning. He looked up at the next two flights of stairs. He didn't envy those whose form was in the cooking classrooms.

The colourful doors in front of him were surrounded by black frames that held student's artworks. They ranged across all the years, from those who had just joined the school, to those who were in their final year of GCSE art.

Roman could draw, he enjoyed it too. But not as well as some of the other students. Sometimes his hand had a hard time creating what he had in his mind, like pieces were getting scrambled in the time it took for both his mind and hand to align ideas. But he was only in year nine, which meant he had another two years of art to improve at least.

He took art as a GCSE because he loved to create. He loved it even more because it was personal, something that wasn't right or wrong, it was only his. Sure, sometimes the teacher argued that he had the wrong kind of ideas, but he would argue back, telling them that the brief was always down to personal interpretation. As long as he showed them that he had really thought about what he was going to do and that it infact did relate to the brief, they let him draw whatever he wanted.

He wished more subjects were like that. Like English. He loved to read, but being forced to read the same book as everyone else, on a deadline, took the joy out of reading it. When you read something everything else read, and were told to analyse it like everyone else, you started to think like everyone else. But you're not everyone else, you're an individual, with your own ideas, and your own thoughts. That should be praised, not stomped out of you.

But when Roman had said that to a substitute English teacher, they had given him detention. Punishment for having his own thoughts.

"Roman Bennett."