My eyelids grow heavy. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to stay sitting at this desk in the beige classroom of a beige school that smells like old wood and chalk and the dust on the shelves. I don’t want to listen to Mr. Jalle in front talking about history and politics and why we are where we are. He can’t explain why I am where I am. I think sometimes about climbing the trees outside, climbing to the very top, then jumping off with my arms outstretched.
I put my hands over my eyes. I see something in front of me. It’s dark green, watery green like a swamp. I’m not outside but underwater. Alligators and fish. My eyes are open and the water stings my eyes. I try and see beyond but there’s nothing. Only darkness. I’m choking on swamp water that tastes like like rusty nails and tonic.
“You’re blind,” the fish say to me.
Mr. Jalle’s voice up front is like a hum, steady, like low-fi bass reverberating in my ears. I can’t hear anything he says. I’m listening. But I don’t hear anything except for the sound in my head. Chatter, like radio static, noise. The bass low and steady in my ears.
I’m blind, I think. So I don’t need to learn any of this. What good will it do me if I understand the Emancipation Proclamation? I can’t run for president if I’m blind. There’s never been a blind president. How would I get to the podium to give the speeches like I see on TV? With someone helping me every step of the way? Holding my hand? How would I work for the betterment of all people if I can’t even see what they look like?
Steph is beautiful She sits behind me and kicks my chair. I can smell her perfume. I take my hands away from my eyes. It’s summer again outside the window. The room is warm and it makes me sweat. There’s a smell like sulfur in the air. Someone is lighting a fire but I can’t see where it is. Steph kicks my chair again. She’s beautiful and I think about her too, how I would bring her to the top of the tree with me so we could fly together. Soar through the clouds and over the ocean and end up somewhere far away. In Russia or somewhere further. China or Japan. Or fly beyond the infinite, keep going until we reach the nearest black hole, hand in hand, to discover new worlds together, king and queen of a universe no scientist here has ever seen before, where we shoot lights from our eyes and never sweat again.
Steph from behind me says, “Are you picking me up in the morning?”
“Why?”
“Tomorrow is Saturday. We were supposed to spend the day together.”
“Okay.”
“We can go and get coffee and then go to the pool.”
She smiles and I smile too. It makes sense, her and me and together. Like watching a car crash on an LA highway or a fistfight on the street after school. Or eating candy while watching old movies at midnight in the basement.
Why I Go to School
Steph has long brown hair. She has big eyes like an anime character. Like a movie star because only a screen of that size would be big enough to hold her. She wears long shirts and short shorts. She is tan from the sun and from her dad, who is Haitian, or so she says. I’ve never met her dad and neither has she. Her mom sits at the kitchen table most of the day, with a cigarette between her fingers smoking all the way down to the filter while she watches TV and then she lights another one. The whole house smells like cigarettes. The whole house smells like this world which is why we need to find a new one.
Mr. Jalle looks at the clock. “Well, he says. We’re almost out of time.”
There is a sigh from the room. Everyone in the class lets out a breath they had been holding since we first sat down simultaneously. Or since we first got to school this morning, when the sun was just beginning to rise and it wasn’t yet this hot. The grass and leaves still wet from the night. Still a chance to run away, to escape before the school doors closed for good behind us.
Mr. Jalle looks at his watch. “Only five minutes left.”
A bluebird perched on the windowsill is looking at the whiteboard and trying to read the dates. He shakes his head, spreads his wings, and flies off.
Mr. Jalle asks, “Any questions?”
And I watch the bluebird, and Steph watches as well, thinking, some day, little bird, we’ll be flying with you and what will you think of us then? No more significant dates in history to memorize. No more learning the names of men and women who’ve done greater things than we ever will. Nothing in the way. Only things to fly over and under, inside and outside…
The bell rings and everyone stands from their seats. Everyone at once. Chair legs scrape against the floor and Mr. Jalle is saying something about homework but no on hears. We’ll either turn it in or we won’t. We’ll either pass or we’ll fail. We’ll win or we’ll lose. Because even though there’s a greenish tint around my eyes from the water in the swamp the world is still a black and white affair.
Steph takes my hand. We walk out of the classroom together and she smiles, her hair hanging down her shoulders. The freckle on her nose covered by a single strand of long and dark hair that doesn’t stay behind her ear no matter how hard she tries to make it. She has chemistry class next, where she’ll learn about mixing and matching all the things that make up our bodies and the world around us. And maybe she’ll pay attention. Or maybe she’ll fall asleep and dream of nicer things. As I go to Geometry class where shapes rule the day.
Where we’re going together. Beyond the school and the blue sky above. To our own private universe. This is where we are in charge and we always will be.