A Sunny April Day

Authors Note: None of this content is based on CHS

Eyes open, closed, open, closed. A sunny April day shines through my window. Day 164 of school, I swear it's like putting a smelly gray carpet over cherry hardwood floors, such a shame. Rolling out of bed on a school day may be the longest part of any day, but before you know it you’re outside walking to the car.

“Better fix that posture of yours.” My mother shouts from inside while putting her shoes on. She takes a solid 3-5 business days just to get out of the house, so I usually wander the driveway. My posture usually has me facing the ground so I tend to follow my eyes. Unfortunately, my eyes are drawn to the most imperfect, ugly, out-of-place parasite ever. Yuck, my red brick house has been tainted with what must be the ugliest yellow frilly mushroom. I hate the color yellow, it's the color of school buses, bees, house mold... the car locks click and I step in. All I hear from my mom is peppy small talk and it goes right over my head. I’ve always found it to be a waste of time. What's the point of talking about today's minuscule dilemmas, hell our universe is getting bigger and we are getting lonelier in space as my mom blabbers on. Some silence in this world would be nice because even after I escape my mom’s noise, 500 other kids who think they are the most exciting thing since the Berlin wall fell in 1989 flood my brain. Shut up would you? I squeeze through the double-doored entrance and quickly pace my way to period one, head down, don’t look up. I rush to my classroom R16. I open the door, everyone stares. I scurry to my usual seat in the third row, by the window because what else would I do other than stare outside during English, and then I settle down. Some meaningless speech spews out of her big mouth, weekend, kids, husband. I want to yell that nobody cares and to get to the point, but I don’t because I’m the student. Mrs. Bello thinks she's our age, she's one of those teachers, ever since the first day she tried so hard to be relatable, every single morning just talking and talking with a little actual content thrown in.

“Are you paying attention?” She glares at me like I just called her a whole encyclopedia of profanities. I want to say no but a tired ‘yeah’ comes out of my mouth, which triggers an eye roll from Mrs Bello, and she continues her blah-ing. Mrs. Bello reminds me of everyone who thinks they matter at my school, if they were a thing, they would certainly each be a singular grain of sand. There are too many of them and they are entirely useless, no contribution to our already small planet that revolves around a very average star in an infinite sea of space. But they don't know that, even if it did I don’t think they would care. English slips by, just like history, math, gym, and suddenly the fifth-period bell rings. Lunch. I see kids zooming down the halls to the lunch line. The food isn’t even that good, I don't get the need to run. The chaos builds and kids start fighting over spots in line like animals. Even prisons are more organized... Maybe the orange jumpsuits make a difference? I take my spot at the back of the line, watching line cutters cut the line, as line cutters do. Slowly the line shortens, I get my grease with a side of chicken and fries, and make a bee-line for my locker. Why am I sitting at my locker? Organizing. Why aren’t I in the lunchroom? Locker’s messy, simple. It works every time. I set my ‘lunch’ down in my locker and grab around for whatever I threw into my bag just before leaving the house. What the fuck! I pull out a singular now turned science experiment of an apple, browned and fluffy, fluffy with gray mold. We hold eye contact before I throw it away in disgust. As I’m heading back to my locker her and her entourage march through the halls, all in deep black leggings and colorful, very tacky, sweaters. It's like I'm at the beach now, so much sand. They look at me, turn away, giggle, and then stare me down as they leave. This, this is why I sit here.

Before I know it, I'm stepping out of school and walking home. I foolishly check my phone like I do each time I walk home. After checking I shake my head and roll my eyes, how silly of me. The validation those messages would give me is worth every second of time I wasted checking. By now it's been days and days of me just checking my phone, a single message would certainly make it worth my while. I wave to the crossing guard, walk a little more, and suddenly I’m walking by my old elementary school. I can’t help but watch the kids run around and wonder, who will end up like sand, or maybe even end up like me. I looked back at the playground I used to play on, like how old people do who peaked in high school, like the type that attends reunions, and looks back on their youth. I know exactly who’ll attend the class of 2025’s reunion. Oh, how I miss those days. You know those carefree days, the type where whether recess was indoors or outdoors was the most important thing on your mind, the type where ice cream Fridays were the best days of the week when life was so much more simple. If you think about it, our lives grow like our math does, we start with one plus one and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, you're sitting down doing linear algebra. But life is nothing like math at all, math is straightforward and to the point, life is almost the exact opposite. Life is a complicated slur of words, a tangle of ropes and chains, life isn’t like any subject I’ve ever heard of.

Suddenly I’m facing yellow frills once again. I shuffle through my bag searching for my key and insert it into the lock. Why won’t it click in and turn, turn for god’s sake. The yellow frills mock me. Shut up, I hiss at them but all they do is laugh and laugh. The lock clicks and I run into the house. Why won’t they all just stop, the frills, her, everything? Sleeping usually helps when I’m stressed like this, I’ll sleep. Sleep is the best escape, if only my life could be as easy as sleep.

My mother’s voice echoes throughout the house. Her calls jolt me awake and I hurriedly stumble down the stairs, she doesn’t like when I take naps.

“How was school? Any tests?”

“Good, and none.”

“Have you eaten?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna do homework now.” I head upstairs and sleep some more.

Eyes open and eyes closed, like the day before. Funny how that works. Today is cold and rainy, unlike yesterday. But just like yesterday, before I even know it, I’m outside waiting for my mom to get ready. Also like yesterday, my eyes wander to the yellow frilly fungi infesting the side of my red brick home. This time the penetrating yellow is even brighter than the day before, contrasting with the dim rainy day. I watch as rain droplets bead off of it as if it doesn’t even feel them. If only I could do that...