Vera Grade 10
You walk in and immediately know it’s a place of study. Your eyes sting as the light from within hits them. Not a feeling of warmth or coziness, not that of fire. Nor vibrant red or bright blue like it is at the parties that the students of this room often host. It’s glaring. A shiver runs up my spine. Clear white so that every single pen stroke and every word said can be scrutinized, analyzed and judged.
Scrutinized, analyzed and judged.
You almost trip on the threshold and see whiteboards that blindingly glow out of their whiteness. I had my test answers projected onto a board like that once. The answers were correct, but nothing is right, only criticized. It’s the start of the day and you realize that they were just cleaned. They take up a whole wall. It makes it easier to be scrutinized, analyzed and judged.
Scrutinized, analyzed and judged.
Just like untied shoelaces, everyone comments. Points it out. People you have never talked to will still tell you that it’s wrong. Not commenting on your smile or a cool jacket you might be wearing. How we love to highlight each other’s flaws. You tread into the room onto the glossy tiled floor, not black like a theater. Nor sterile white like some hospital. A warm brown-red, similar to the mud on your P.E shoes. It makes you wonder if they did it on purpose so that the cleanliness of the room can only be determined by the glistening whiteboards and not by the footsteps on the floor. Whatever the reason, you are glad it’s that color. A warm color that reminds you of large libraries and colleges you hope to walk through one day. You rub your palms together realizing how clammy they are, as you see how the rigidness of the most basic things in the room had made you nervous. Its eerie emptiness crawling upon you.
You start again at the warm floor for comfort and your hands perspire even more; libraries and colleges where I will be scrutinized, analyzed and judged even more.
Scrutinized, analyzed and judged.
No matter what the color of the floor would have been, a shiver begins to run up and down your spine. It has nothing to do with the drizzle starting outside. You pace a few steps forward, you step onto a scarlet carpet. Your head starts spinning, the area is engineered to have anything but bright colors in it. Right, in the center of the room. Impossible not to notice no matter where you are sitting throughout the room. The color is bright, making sure all students are alert and awake, ready to be scrutinized, analyzed and afraid; even those whose gaze shifted onto the floor, away from the whiteboards covering the entire wall; demanding attention. You walk through to the end of the room and step onto a gold and crimson rug. In front of you are a set of windows covering an entire wall.
Relief.
Relief to the students of the room, a window of hope, a change of scenery and distraction from the austere session. Relief from being treated like a pair of untied shoelaces. You look out and laugh to yourself. Unable to resist the urge of comparing the mud of the tired field to the color of the tiles in the room you stand trembling in. The same color. The room squats higher up than the field, allowing you to see the grim sight of your mates dragging one leg in front of the other on the field. I used to have so much fun in that class, until I reached that age. You have an urge to pull the stern window as wide as it goes and belt out something to your comrades as they barely move under you. But you can’t. This is a place of study; you would yell and cackle in a huge library? One that you hope to use to study in one day. One where you will be judged inside.
Scrutinized, analyzed and judged.
No, you thought that the cell with the scarlet carpet and the pearly whiteboards is the only place where students are taught to judge, compare and hate each other, rising to the top and making no friends along the way. No. The adolescents on the field are taught to extend the judgment from what is in each other’s heads to the physical bodies they have. You see him win a race but he turns to face your windows and you see no smile on his face. You see her desperately trying to be passed to, touch the ball just once, you sigh knowing she has no chance since everyone is taught that, even in team sports, it’s every man for himself. Someone who doesn’t make the cut, doesn’t earn respect; no longer are they somebody, but a nobody flailing their limbs across a field. You hear the shrill wheeze of the commander’s signal, and watch as your cohorts file into runty rooms under an ancient gym. Two rooms, each for their corresponding genders. We call this the future, but these two rooms haven’t been changed in any way since they came into existence.
No one seems excited even though it’s the end of class.
This is the worst part.
You shudder to realize that the bodies of the young souls will now be on display. To one another. No adults are allowed in those rooms and no one sees the dignity defiling that happens within the sorry walls of the room. It is a competition after all. You either are a winner or a loser.
“You are either the hunter or the hunted”.
You see it written in disgruntled hand on the windowsill, you remember you passed a desk with a reprint of some older literary text on it. Funny how only a few years ago our society was worried about some crude animals, even with the meager amount left. Now it is worried only about being the best in a cell of study, this determines whether you live or, or not.
You turn back and peer back into the hollow room. After all, it is just a shell. A shell that is carving the building blocks for our society. What stupid thoughts you think to yourself. You’ve been standing in this room for so long and you’ve done absolutely nothing. There is no way you can become the best like this. You step out of the cell where the building blocks are made. You shudder as you glimpse your reflection in the whiteboards, your arms too long and not enough muscle on your legs. You feel useless and dim; you did not think creatively enough within that cell. Footsteps echo from the hall and your instructor walks in. He hands you your graded test back, “Well done, but unfortunately, I still can not award you full marks for this, mate. Also, watch your laces.”
Elements Magazine 