Chapter 2 - Wash, Rinse, Repeat

The halls were painted perfectly with gray and blue, the school colors. I never got the blue but the gray felt so appropriate to accent my so totally interesting high school life. Gray, the color in an ever-wide spectrum symbolizing a dull, boring, lame and generic existence. I am no different than the masses I drown in even though I would like to place myself under the category of individual. I can't honestly say I'm unique when there are seven billion people in the world and counting. In this world I am not even a speck of dust on a camera lens.

My school days are filled with the meaningless chitter chatter of those around me, speaking word after word filled with worlds of nothingness, so to me, they might as well be silent. It wouldn't make much of a difference, at the end of the day nothing is said anyway. No real conversations, no real situations, every man and woman deserving an Oscar for the perfect performance of the person they portray every day.

I grab my stuff from my locker and slam the dark blue metal door shut with a clang. The universe swirls around me while I walk, step by step through it. Everyone is talking to each other, friends, boy toys, sisterhoods, gamer clans, future fraternities, all corresponding in the blue and gray halls that accent my existence.

I walk toward my first class thinking of what it would be like to be a part of it all or to at least have one person to talk to. I just wish there was someone out there who could understand me rather than marvel at me like a caged animal. Someone who wouldn't slap a label on me and follow the norms of society. A lone comet soaring through space and time just like me. 

My first class is Chemistry and as I step through the door I can smell the distinct aroma of something burnt. Everyone in the room is chatting with one another not even acknowledging I exist. I drop my backpack on the ground and practically fall into my seat causing it to squeak loudly, again, my existence goes unnoticed. 

 

The teacher begins, "Alright… Today we are going to work on nomenclature and…"

Her voice trails off into the thoughts in my head. I know I should pay attention but when everyday blends together it becomes hard to wake up with the same enthusiasm of living life. Everyday seems exactly the same. Its like the back of a shampoo bottle. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. I wake up in the morning at six-o'-nine AM after pressing the snooze button once at six confused at why someone thought ten minutes was too much. I then shower, get dressed in the clothes that get me outcasted and eat a bowl of cereal before taking a bumpy bus ride to school. I stumble zombified through the eight ours of emptiness, rarely speaking a word, then take the same bumpy bus ride home where I listen to music, read a book, and have dinner with my Mom after she gets off work. Then I have to do it all over again. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

The bell echoed into my ears and by habit and conditioning, forced me to pick up my bag and rush out of the classroom. Why am I in such a hurry? Like anyone really needs me there. Contrary to the thought of some ignorant people in this world, life would not stop if I didn't show up. Its safe to ask, who would even notice?

I go through the same procedure every class. Sit down, shut up, leave. This is my high school career and according to popular belief, the time of my life. Boy is this exciting!

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

After history, the lunch bell rang seeming to launch kids down the halls like rockets through space, all firing off at the exact same time and I followed them. When I arrived, every table in the cafeteria was filled. Filled with corresponding pieces communicating among all the others creating one loud undecipherable noise. Pure unimaginable chaos.

I payed for my food and walked off with a gray tray carrying items I was disgusted with. A soggy chicken sandwich,  seven stale tater tots and a cardboard carton of chocolate milk. I was heading to the one place I had sat everyday for months now. We have vending machines in the hallway outside the cafeteria. Next to those vending machines is a table with no chairs, forgotten and unnoticed just like me. This is where I sit and eat my lunch in silent solitude. No table crowded with people talking mindlessly, just me alone with my thoughts. People are everywhere on every square inch of this planet. So why, more how, could I feel so alone?

I hope I'm not the only one…

"We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life."

Tennessee Williams