High school

This story is gonna be short, cause my life is really only one day that repeats itself over and over.

I wake up from my dreamless sleep to the shrill screech of my alarm at 6:30 AM. But I stay in bed and stare at the ceiling until about 7:00. I meant to take a shower this morning, but since the bus comes at 7:15 I only have time to pull on a pair of jeans, possibly the same ones I’ve been wearing all week, and quickly brush my teeth.

I only bother looking good on two days, the first day of school and picture day. That said, my efforts don’t ever end up paying off. Nobody notices me on the first day any more than they do the rest of the year, and as for my picture, I feel sorry for all the relatives my mom sent it to.

When I get downstairs, my mom is waiting for me impatiently. Her name is Sharon and she’s the sort of person who only sees the positive in you when other people are around. “Ben!” she snaps at me, “You need to get up on time! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, especially for a growing boy like you!” Honestly I haven’t grown in at least a year, and I’d like to keep it that way cause if my limbs get any longer and more disproportionate i’ll probably get tangled up in them.

“Are you tired because you don’t get to bed early enough? You know I expect you to be in bed and asleep by 9:30. If you’re tired, you’ll have trouble taking out the trash, setting the table and washing the dishes, walking the dog, doing everyone’s laundry, helping cook dinner, and doing the 10 hours of studying I also expect you to do everyday. Oh, and speaking about expectations, don’t forget about that college visit today! I know it overlaps with one of your classes, but I will not tolerate you skipping out on college visits or missing any more classes. You have a lot to do, and if you don’t get enough sleep, you won’t be accomplishing your best work.”

“Tell me about it,” I mumble back to her. I grab my bag and head towards the door, knowing I probably only have one of my textbooks cause it only weighs about 25 pounds, but not caring.

I’ve almost escaped when my dad walks in. Both him and my mom love being obnoxious, and it’s only gotten worse now that Kevin’s been talking about moving back in even though he’s 24. He has a college degree, but not a job, reliable food supply, or any sort of shelter. If I’m being generous I might say I’m a tenth of the student he was, but really I’m just a total scrub and I guess my parents don’t like that. So I always do my best to avoid my dad.

He glances in my direction, then does a double take with a look of horror on his face and stops cold. “Ben!” he barks, “those pants are not appropriate for a respectable young man off to get an education and have a meaningful impact on the world! You need to do something about those repulsive holes in your jeans!”

I can see the bus coming to a stop at my driveway through the window. “Do something about the holes in our economy, Robert!” I shout back over my shoulder, then slam the door behind me. He’s part of the generation that also left us with a terrible healthcare system, pathetic social welfare, and a useless government in general, as well as melted ice caps and the aftermath of multiple wars. If you can find a way to put all that into a comeback, let me know.

Most kids on the bus are sprawled out on their seats, asleep or listening to music. No such luck for me; I still haven’t started my spanish worksheet that was due last week. I quickly scribble some words in the blank spaces and circle stuff that I feel like should be circled. Unfortunately the directions are all in spanish and I don’t speak spanish.

My first class is math, which is not the optimal way to start the day. I get there late, which I probably could have prevented by not going all the way around the corridor past the computer lab, but I really don’t like that corridor. There’s this dead end section branching off to the left where the Gothic Group is always lurking. I swear, the only class they leave their little corner for is Advanced Latin. The rest of the day they spend dressed in all black so they can blend into the shadows, and whisper back and forth furiously in Latin, which I’m pretty sure is supposed to be a dead language. Whenever you walk by they abruptly stop talking and give you the evil eye. Sometimes they’ll hiss at you. It creeps me out.

When I walk in, Mr.David is circulating around the room, checking for homework. I’m not entirely sure what homework, but I can assure you I didn’t do it. His back is turned so he doesn’t see me coming in late, which is good. He’s a fat, bitter old man who lives alone with his pet cat that he hates and gets his only pleasure from marking kids tardy for being two seconds late.

We have assigned seating, like it’s kindergarten or something. Mr.David picks favorites, so he let the entire Preppy Yet Lame Group sit together, and made me sit right in the middle of them. Everyday they make sure to wear pastel colors with little dolphins and sailboats, just so you know they have summer houses and yachts. Except they’re the lame preppies, so they don’t really have all that. They’re just idiots clad in nautical themed and fake designer clothing.

Their conversations always sicken me; today they’re making plans for the weekend. “We should go into the city on Friday,” Devon says. “It’s been awhile since I’ve gone to the Museum of Science.” I roll my eyes. You can’t put in effort to be cool then get turnt at a museum.

Cali nods enthusiastically. “After, we should have a sleep over and discuss our various political views like we know what we’re talking about and aren’t over privileged white kids who get all our opinions from twitter!”

I’m almost glad when Mr.David gets to our table. “Do you have our tests graded yet?” I ask mostly just to shut up the idiots around me. The word ‘test’ immediately gets their attention, and they turn around eagerly.

Mr.David stops and gives me a stern look. “Believe it or not, I have a life to attend to. It’s only been two weeks since you took the test; that’s hardly enough time to expect me to grade all of them. Besides, it’s rude and inconsiderate to demand for things to get done like that.”

“Sorry,” I grunt, even though I’m not.

He ignores me and reorganizes the pages on his clipboard. Then he looks up and asks “Where’s your homework?” an eyebrow raised expectantly.

“I didn’t do it.”

He sighs dramatically and shakes his head sadly as he marks an X next to my name on his clipboard. “Time management and handling deadlines is something you should be able to do by now. I expect you’ll hand it in tomorrow, and I might give you partial credit.” When he says might it means he won’t, I know that trick.

I actually try to follow what happens, it makes me feel self conscious when everyone at my table is furiously taking notes on every minute detail and I’m just sitting there doing nothing. But I get lost in the first five minutes after the words ‘discrete’ and ‘permutation’ get thrown around a few times too many. We spend the whole class watching Mr.David do problems. He does most of the work in his head and only writes out unintelligible calculations and arrows pointing everywhere, and on occasion an illustration of the 36 apples in the grocery store mentioned in the problem. So even though I try to copy it down it’s not like it’s gonna be a huge help.

Long after I’ve completely given up any pretense of studiousness, Mr.David finally turns away from the board. “Now that we have learned all about probability- Excuse me! We still have eleven seconds of class! Don’t you dare start packing up!- anyway, now that we have mastered probability, I’m assigning this packet on triangulating celestial bodies. It’s only 20 pages long, please have it finished for tomorrow morning along with your study guide, take home test, and also functioning spaceship prototype. I’m keeping the workload light tonight to make sure you guys still have plenty of time to participate on a team sport, work a job, volunteer, maintain your 4.0 gpa, and take on a leadership role. Email me if you have questions, but as you know, my bedtime is 8:30 and any time past 4 PM is strictly family time.” I already packed up twenty minutes ago, so I’m the first to get out.

I would tell you about my other classes, about research papers and pop quizzes, but you don’t want to know about that. And I cut them all anyway so it doesn’t matter.

I wander into the library, planning to get started on my english reading but in no hurry to do so. I hate it here, the hushed atmosphere is so stifling and the librarians are somewhat reptilian in a nonhuman way. Besides, the drug dealers and other sketchy characters are always prowling around the vacant bookshelves. I’m not into that stuff anymore; when you have weed everyone expects you to share, and that shit is expensive.

I sit down with my book, something called Waiting for Godot. People in my class say it’s boring, but I wouldn’t actually know cause I haven’t managed to read any of it. But I’ve heard enough to gather that I can probably relate to the characters. I know I’ll eventually have to write an essay about it, cause that’s what we do in english class, so I’ll probably just google the summary before I write about it. That and some minor plagiarism typically does the trick.

After half an hour of staring at the book, I put it away to go google the rules of badminton for one of the worksheets my PE teacher insists on making us do. Pretty soon I’m watching youtube videos, and the librarian materializes beside me, growls at me, gives me a lecture about respecting school property and the dangers of the internet, then kicks me out.

I realize it’s lunch time, and with nothing better to do I make my way to the cafeteria, wondering if all the stairs I have to go up and down count as the team sport I’m supposed to be participating in. Honestly, I know I probably should try out for the soccer team or something, but they meet right after school and that’s nap time.

When I finally get to the caf I’m met by a seething mass of people and it smells somewhat damp. Most people I don’t recognize, but I can see the different groups and can tell where border lines crisscross around the tables. The Videogame Nerds huddle together, bent over various electronic devices, intently jabbing at their keyboards. I hung out with them for a few years. The games they play are concerningly violent and I don’t think they ever speak to each other. The Popular Group chatters loudly in the center, taking up three tables. Sometimes I like to count how many are wearing the exact same type of shoes, and which are casually carrying around their lacrosse sticks. I have a couple of them in my english class, and from the way they stick together at all costs you’d think we’re in a survival of the fittest situation, where they survive by operating as a single unit. And Meredith Martel, even though english is block 6, she’s still always carrying around a few ounces of coffee, just so everyone knows she had starbucks that morning.

I walk past all the Got Milk? posters, food group diagrams, and a couple I think are about child obesity and the importance of vegetables, but I’ve never bothered to actually look at them. I get in line, which is long because I’m behind the entire Weird Group. I think a prerequisite to joining that group must be having hair colored and styled in a way never conceived of before. I find most of them to be annoying. the only one I kind of like is Yolonda Garnett; sometimes we bond over our mutual desire to die. But she can be pretty annoying too.

When the food finally comes into view I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to be, it looks like some brown goop with chunks, and appears to be moving somewhat on it’s own accord. One of the lunch ladies looks at me absentmindedly and starts shoveling the brown stuff into a styrofoam bowl. She gives me my lunch every day, but I know hardly anything about her, not even her name.

“Um, excuse me, but what is that supposed to be?” I’m not about to eat that if I don’t know what it is, let alone pay for it.

She pauses and peers at me through the off-colored steam rising up off the concoction. “Chili.” She replies flatly.

“I’ll pass.” I say quickly. “What’s for dessert?”

She gestures to a tub next to the chili. “Cake.” The cakes are these oblong shaped things drowned in suspiciously bright pink icing. They don’t look amazing, especially since some of the chili seems to have splashed onto them, but at least I can tell what they are.

“I’ll just have one of those today.” She impassively hands the bowl of chili to the person behind me and passes me a cake. I grab a carton of milk, even though it’s always watery, and carry my tray over to the cashier to pay. Because the lunches are sold at a set price, I end up paying $3.50 even though I barely have anything.

As soon as I’m out, I put my tray in a pile with all the other used trays and just carry my food in my hands. I used to eat in the caf, but discovered pretty quickly that any notion of personal space in non existent, which doesn’t work out well if you’re asocial and don’t like other life forms.

I head out into the hall, planning to wander around aimlessly like I usually do. About thirty seconds of further investigation show the cake to in fact be an old hotdog bun entombed in the frosting. I toss it in a nearby trash; I should’ve checked the salad bar. There’s nothing there besides a pile of limp lettuce leaves, but sometimes they have a stack of pizza slices left over from friday at half price, and I’m pretty sure it’s Tuesday, so there probably still are some. But I’m too lazy to go all the way back into the caf and check it out, so I just open my milk carton and head toward the nearest vending machine.

The food on display inside is covered in cobwebs, which doesn’t help my appetite much. In an effort to be healthy the school doesn’t offer much of anything edible, and the closest thing to a snack I can buy are a couple packets of animal crackers. I almost even consider the raisins, that should give you an idea of how desperate I am.

My next stop is the college visit in the lecture hall, I think it’s Mount Ida or something. Truth is college doesn’t excite me a whole lot. The only thing about another four years of school I find remotely appealing is the idea of being away from my family. Even so, I go inside. Everyone is sitting in the front two rows, and the college representative is on the carpet in front of them. I stay standing by the door, incase I need to make an escape. Turns out to be a good decision on my part, cause I can only stomach about 10 minutes of listening to the guy talk about seeking truth and excellence through education. I don’t know who he thinks he’s fooling, nobody knows more about what education can do to you than a bunch of high school students.

There’s one block left before the end of the day, and since it only started 15 minutes ago, I decide just to go.

It’s history, and Ms.Cooke is in the middle of a slideshow when I walk in. Everyone turns to look at me, and she stops teaching. I can tell she’s annoyed. She pretty much always is.

“Ben, you realize you are coming fifteen minutes late?”

“At least I did come.”

“Fair enough.” She purses her lips and looks pained. We’ve had the conversation before, about how it’s my responsibility to decide what kind of person I want to be, and if I don’t graduate on my own no one can make it happen for me. There’s not really a whole lot more for her to say. I know she’ll mark me tardy, which is not what I need with all the cuts I’ve probably gotten today, but whatever.

I can follow what Ms.Cooke is saying, which I guess is a step in the right direction, but I know I’ll never remember it all. Besides, I’ve already fallen so far behind in this class it’s a lost cause. I spent all of my energy the first six months of class trying to figure out how to have sex with the girl who sits in front of me. Nothing ever came of it.

The bus ride home is more or less exactly the same as the ride here, except it’s a lot less quiet cause the freshmen like to yell back and forth the entire way in the afternoons. Usually my mom isn’t home when I arrive, but today she is. She tries to hand me a vacuum cleaner, but I avoid eye contact and head straight to my room and shut the door. I know she won’t follow me in there; I think she’s afraid of what she might find. Like I said, it’s nap time. I used to have a job at the local grocery store, but they fired me and notified the police after I got caught borrowing some of the food. My parents keep pressuring me to get another job, but somehow no one wants to hire me, and I don’t terribly want to be hired.

When I wake up it’s dark outside. Sometimes my parents like to make me eat dinner with them, but luckily my dad is out late tonight, so I can just sit in my room and play videogames. I know I probably should do my homework, but there’s just no way I can even begin to scratch the surface, so I don’t even try. I’m an optimist though, and I do take another crack at Waiting For Godot, but it turns out to be fruitless.

I planned to get an early bedtime, but a comic book, a handful of bent paperclips, some selfies, and too many memes later it’s 2AM and I’m in the kitchen with some cereal. I can’t cook much, but I can make a mean bowl of cornflakes.

I vacuum the floor, cause clearly my mom wanted me to. I know she won’t like me doing it in the middle of the night, and that’s what makes it bearable. I eventually go back upstairs and looks over some chemistry notes, but they make no sense. Well, looks like I just failed my test tomorrow.

On that note, I turn out the lights and crawl into bed. It’s been a really long week. Oh yeah, it’s only Tuesday. This happens every night before I fall asleep. I wish this week was over, this month, this year, honestly this life I’m ready for the next one.