The worst day

So it begins

Imagine the night sky with absolutely no stars. No moon, no clouds, nothing. Just the vast emptiness of space. Imagine that sky right in front of you. You stand on a tiny piece of land that floats on the edges of infinity. Everything is perfect silence. Looking down between your feet, you see the rock on which you stand. You can feel its weight pushing up against you, even though gravity goes the other way. That weight starts to feel less and less, and suddenly you realise that the rock on which you stand is dissolving beneath you. A lump grows in your chest. Your eyes feel stingy. These are the sensations of fear. The rock beneath you grows transparent, and then it’s gone. Then every inch of your body is gripped by a sensation you know all too well. Falling. You fall and fall, and pressure builds inside you, the emptiness around wants to fill itself, and you feel like you’re about to explode, your very soul is being torn apart. A white speck appears in the darkness. It grows into dot, then a line, then a rectangle. The tension in your body is becoming unbearable, you open your mouth and unleash a barbaric scream, yet no noise comes out. As the tiny white rectangle gets closer, you see how fast you must be moving, because it’s growing very fast. In seconds the distance halves. You put your arms up to protect yourself, but it’s no use, you smash into the bed full speed, stopping so abruptly that your eyes bulge and all your blood goes to your front. You feel different, the explosive sensation is gone. You roll over and sit up, and the infinite stretch of emptiness is gone. Instead, what you see is very finite. A small room, just big enough for a closet, a desk and bed, looking out the window you see its morning, and that’s when it all comes back. This is your room, you were dreaming, most importantly, it’s Monday, and you’re running late for school. If you can imagine that, you’ll have a pretty good idea of how I felt when I woke up.

I leapt out of bed in the direction of the closet, tripped over my blankets and flew head first into the closet door. I stood up and tore my pyjamas off, then set a world record for fastest time getting dressed. I grabbed my bag, opened the zip as far as it went, then swept everything off my desk straight in to its hungry mouth. I grabbed my phone, wallet and keys at the same time and then dropped them all on the floor as I tried to put them in my pockets. Second time lucky. I jogged over to the door and starting heading down the stairs, then realised I wasn’t wearing shoes. I set another world record for fastest 10m dash up the stairs, reached for the door handle, missed it, and once more found my forehead in intimate contact with a hard surface. Once in the room I realised I’d forgotten my bike helmet the first time, so I grabbed that and slid my feet into my shoes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my lucky comb, so I grabbed it and slipped it into my pocket with my phone. I dashed down the stairs, having successfully navigated the door this time, leapt over the cat, and went on through to the garage. As the mechanical door crawled up the sky like a lazy sun, I unlocked my bike, shoved the bike lock into my bag and wheeled out the garage door, doing a bit of limbo on the way. As soon as I got in the saddle it was like a switch in my brain had been flicked from ‘clumsy idiot’ to ‘epic ninja’. The ten minute car journey to school took me exactly 6 minutes and 33 seconds, another world record for sure, as I jumped curbs, ran red lights and zoomed up the sides of traffic, ghost rider style. No way the devil could have kept up. I rolled through the gates feeling like an angel on two wheels. I was greeted by the familiar sights of graffiti coated walls, trashed scooters, litter and flattened footballs. Home sweet home. This was where I had spent the last 8 years of my life, the wondrous place we know as Colchester Collegiate School.

I skidded up to the bike racks and locked my bike. As I sprinted towards my first class I checked my watch. 8:44. I had a minute to get to the 6^th floor of the tower block, which meant 12 flights of steps, and not only that, but I also had Mr Radic first, who was the dictator of the Democratic People’s Republic of 6^th form Calculus. You would not believe how fast I sprinted up those stairs, I went fast enough to give Usain Bolt a run for his money…well not really, but I felt pretty fast. But alas my time was too short, I burst into the classroom panting like a dog and was confronted with the stony silence I’d come to associate with this class. Mr Radic was a legend at the school. He was a man shrouded in mystery, he’d been teaching at Colchester Collegiate for longer than anyone had been attending it, and the stories of his life before that were on as numerous and obscure as those of India were to the ancient Greeks. Some said he was in the KGB, and was still spying to this day. I’d heard he had a tattoo on his arm like a tally, with one line for every man he’d killed. Some said he was a drug dealer, a mafia boss, a member of the Croatian Royal Family, an assassin, a terrorist, a former world wrestling champ, the list goes on and on. Whatever the truth, he certainly ran the class as if it were a Special Forces unit, and today I was bad soldier. “Why you are late” his voice boomed across the classroom. I’d seen this happen to other unlucky souls before, he would sit there and ask questions that lead nowhere, and then sentence them to detention. “ I slept in Sir” I said, I knew enough about Mr Radic to know that he didn’t like excuses, you’re better to just let him play his game than to try argue with him. “Why you so lazy?” I don’t think he ever spoke in proper English, but no one, not even the pope, would dare say that to him. “I don’t know Sir” there was no way out of this, my best hope was that someone else would be detained as well, which was usually a pretty safe bet when it came to Radic. “Take seat boy, and see me after school.” Detention it was then, I turned and walked towards my seat at the back of the class when I started to notice a ripple of suppressed giggles radiating away from me. “And Boy” Radic’s voice boomed from behind me, ‘What now?’ I thought. “The roof is not going to fall in.” An evil grin danced across his lips as the puzzle fit together in my mind; I was still wearing my bike helmet. No wonder everyone was giggling. I realised that this was the first time I had ever seen Radic smile, and his was an ugly smile. His yellowed teeth and blackened gums had obviously seen more than their share of cigars, booze, and oily Eastern European food. His dry lips were cracked at the corners and made him look like some kind of deranged drug addict. But the worst thing about that smile was the expression. He actually hated his students, and he was enjoying seeing one of them suffer. “I will get him back for this” I thought darkly as I removed my helmet and sat down.

The lesson played out as usual, Radic asked difficult questions and humiliated any student who tried to answer, by the end of the hour I had four new people to share my detention with. Lucky me. The rest of the day drifted by with unsurprising monotony. I got to all my classes on time, did work until my attention span ran out, and then went to the next class. At lunch I had people to hang out with, but no one would have cared if I wasn’t there. I wondered why it was that I rushed to school every morning, just to waste the whole day watching teachers tell people off. I wondered why the sky was blue, I wondered what the adaptive advantage of spots on a leopard were, or the mane on a lion, and whether pukekos’ were an example of punctuated equilibrium or gradualism. The world is full of mysteries, but not many people care enough to figure them out. I guess it’s easier to let some mystery ‘scientists’ figure it out for you.

Finally, the end of the day came around. I was halfway to the bike racks when I remembered I had a detention, and then had to sprint up 12 flights of stairs to the 6^th floor for the second time that day. Being late to detention was as bad as being late to class in Radic’s private army. This time I was lucky, and wasn’t the last person to arrive. As I walked in the door 2 other students sat grimly in their seats, Radic was at his desk, staring at his computer screen.  This was my second detention with Radic, the first one I got for taking notes in class, which was supposedly stopping me from listening to what he was saying. I had arrived on time to that one and spent 10 minutes sitting there waiting for him to say something, then he asked me why I had got a detention, and then sent me home. If wasted time polluted the planet like wasted materials, he could destroy entire ecosystems singlehandedly. This time there was a proper reason for me to be here, so I didn’t know what to expect. At least I wasn’t the last guy to walk in. After the 4^th person arrived, Radic returned to the real world and went and closed the door. When the pitiful next student turned up and knocked on the door politely, Radic brought him in and went through his usual humiliation ritual, before sitting him down. I didn’t know what this kids name was, but I knew enough to feel sorry for him. He was in the year above everyone else, having failed the year before, and had had Mr Radic three years in a row, I’ll let you decide whether the two are linked. He was also both the hairiest and pimpliest person in the school, and his two little eyes flickered timidly back and forth beneath his monobrow whenever he talked. No one was heartless enough to bully him, but no one ever talked to him either, so he sat alone every lunch time and buried himself in fantasy novels, probably wishing he were in any world other than this one. I always felt sorry for him, and felt like I should do something to help him, but I was never motivated enough. Whenever I was about to go and talk to him, I’d suddenly chicken out, or just not be able to speak.

So as Radic sat their torturing him, and he stood there, shifting his weight from leg to leg, looking at the ground and twitching his lips in an attempt to speak, I was nearly out of my mind in combined pity and contempt. Eventually, the poor guy could sit down, and Radic stood up to examine the rest of his victims. I watched his eyes as he scanned each student, and, I may have imagined it because I hated him, but his eyes lit up as he looked back at the last student. He turned back to the kid sitting closest to him and said “Why you are here?”

“I was doodling in class sir,” replied a petrified girl with shoulder length brown hair and a twitching right hand that drove my mild inner OCD insane.

“What should you be doing, when you are in my class?”

“Listening sir”

“Very good, go catch bus.” She picked up her bag, counted her lucky stars and scampered from the room. Thanks to Radic, she would be just late enough to have missed the school bus to wherever she was going.

“You,” he said to the next in his line, a blonde kid who was probably the most nondescript person in the entire school. He did mainstream subjects, played mainstream sports and just generally did a good job of blending in to the background. But not even he could escape Radic’s purge. “Why you are here?” boomed Radic again.

“I was taking notes while you were talking sir.” He got off the same as the girl, all he had to deal with was his parents asking why he was late.  It looked like I was going to get off easy again. The last guy before me was one of the few people in the class whose name I knew, and that was only because he was always getting told off, but got surprisingly few detentions. This was Sam Jones, probably the biggest smart a*s show off in the year group. I don’t how he got away with constantly talking back to every teacher in the school. Maybe they thought he was funny, maybe they were intimidated by his social confidence, or by the fact that all the other kids laughed at everything he said. But today he too escaped with nothing more severe than being late home.  As Radics’ gaze turned towards me, I was sure that I’d just be sent home too. “Now boys, for you I have special job.” No such luck, today, me and the other guy had been singled out as trouble makers for reasons which I will never know. “Come with me.” He said, and walked out the door. We had to jog to catch back up as we worked our way down all the stairs, and then through the corridors to the most out of the way place in the entire school, the caretakers house.

Once upon a time, when this city was just a rural centre and so the school was tiny, the caretakers house was the house of the caretaker of the time, who got the job because of his proximity to his place of work. During his 34 year holding of the title, the school bought the land off him, and his house became the residence of the head caretaker. Then in 1978 a massive earthquake caused the thin stretch of land blocking of the Colchester lake from the sea to sink. This suddenly turned the city into a perfect natural harbour to relieve pressure from the crowded ports at the nation’s largest city, Lynnemouth, which was nearby. The new trade opportunities, as well as the all the jobs created by the rebuilding projects, brought a massive migration of entrepreneurs and tradesman. The city doubled in size in only a few years, and my parents were one of the many young couples that moved here to take advantage of all the new job opportunities, and cheap houses. All of a sudden the school had to grow to accommodate the children of the new arrivals, despite the founding of several other new colleges. The care takers house once stood in a field, as shown in several black and white photos, only recognisable as the same place by the skyline. Now however, it sits glamorously in the middle of a courtyard in the Art Department. I don’t know how it isn’t a privacy violation. The house is colonial in design, with the characteristic front porch and detailed carving at the tops of the pillars, and even gets its own little plaque which tells the story I just told, as well as providing a place for rebellious 12 year olds to stick gum and scribble their initials on with a sharpie.

Today I was to have the pleasure of cleaning the aforementioned plaque, with my new anonymous and emotionally fragile buddy. Armed with a bucket of hot water, a ripped rubber glove, a sponge and a flat metal sort of thing which I called a scraper, I got to the task at hand. I scrubbed and scraped away, trying to get my hand in and out of the bucket as fast as possible to minimise the burn damage to the exposed parts of my fingers, I considered the situation. I’d slept in and turned up late to class. The logic of detentions is you have to make up for the time you missed, but all I missed was Radic wasting time, which is all he did for the rest of the lesson anyway. Now here I was doing a time consuming, somewhat pointless task, which would cause me to be hours late home, giving me hardly any time to do homework. I would no doubt get to school the next day, with my homework incomplete, and be given a detention for not finishing my homework. The cyclic logic and Catch-22 like nature of my situation frustrated me. Most of what I’d learn in my time at school wouldn’t help me do anything with my life when I left, so all I was there to do was learn how to learn, but I was being setup to fail. No one here was on my side. The teachers were more concerned about their prospects of a pay rise or a senior management position than my intellectual well-being. The other students were more concerned about one of two things, how they were going to illegally obtain alcohol that weekend, and/or how they were going to improve their world ranking in one or multiple mind numbingly violent and un-educational video games, that was all the students except me and about 2 other people who neither gamed nor drunk. The other two were twins notorious for reggae music, colourful beanies, and joints buried in a pit behind the gym.

I was there for exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes getting that plaque clean, and by the end my fingers were red and sore, and it looked like I was going to have a few blisters in the morning. Obviously Radic knew the rule that students couldn’t be held for more than 90 minutes without prior notice, and utilised it to its maximum extent. When Radic finally told us we could go, I shared a relieved look with my supposed partner in crime, strolled around the corner, then sprinted for the bike racks as fast as I could. I took off the lock, strapped on my helmet and jumped on to the bike, but as soon as put in the first pedal stroke I knew something was wrong. A look down at my back wheel confirmed my fears, to add to my beautiful day, I had a flat tyre. Immediately I felt that cage settle around my heart, the sensation I got when I knew I was in trouble. Every day I put the necessary tools to repair a flat to school with me, but in my rush this morning I had forgotten, I had realised this on the way to school, and considered going back to get the stuff, but I had never had a flat going to or from school before, so I figured I’d be safe. But, to quote another forgotten novel character, “the one time the oven is on is the one time you didn’t bother to double check, and that’s when the f***ing house burns down.” I walked home with the figurative ashes of my burned house, which took around half an hour. I never realise how incredibly slow walking is unless I’m supposed to be riding. It takes 5 minutes to walk something you can ride in 30 seconds. By the time I reached home the early winter sun had set, leaving my fingers almost too numb to unlock the garage. Once I was in the garage I set about changing the flat tube for a new one. It’s such a weird feeling being numb, it’s like you just can’t put force through your fingers. It doesn’t really hurt until your fingers start to thaw. Then you start to wish you never had them. I soon realised it was impossible trying to fix a flat with fingers that I couldn’t use. Normally with something like that I would procrastinate until the last possible time, but today I was procrastinating in another way. The last thing I wanted to do was explain to my parents why I was late home. As it just so happened, why I was so late home was probably the least of their worries. When I walked into the living room I was greeted by two grim-faced parents and a police officer. I felt a stone form in my throat and my stomach attempt to strangle itself. What had I done? “Good evening officer,” I started tentatively. “How can I help you?”