Okay, this is a story I had to write for my English class. You better read it because it took 3 hours last night and didn't let me do any of my math homework!!! Hope you all like it
The light blue color of the sky may have been pretty that Friday afternoon, but it could have been prettier. The more the years passed, the more the sky’s blue color seemed to diminish in quality. At least, that’s how it seemed to the girl who constantly stared out at it during her ever so boring History class. It used to amaze her when she was younger, causing multiple fantasies to fill her small, unknowing mind. But, as time progressed, the beauty she once saw soon faded from her mind.
Taking her golden eyes off the sky, the girl return her gaze to where her mind should have been focused on: her History teacher. He was busy ranting on and on monotonously about some weekend homework assignment that even she knew no one would do. The girl could care less; she was bound to ace the assignment without even trying.
Before he could explain any further about the new homework, the low bell tone emitted itself from the speaker that hung on the wall above the whiteboard. The annoying tone was always a relief for the class in alerting them that their day was finally over and they could go home. Although the rest of the students knew what time it was, the girl who sat in the back of the classroom never knew until the sound of metal chairs scraping against the tile floors reached her ears. Even though she knew the day was finally over, she didn’t stand up just yet. Getting up would mean going on the long journey home, and marking the beginning of her never ending hell.
A silent sigh escaped her lips as she forced herself up and out of her chair, her eyes glancing around the now empty classroom. Sketches and messages of nonsense were doodled on random desks, each drawn by a stranger and directed to a stranger. The girl knew of the horrid image that lay underneath the plastic desk tops and knew that the janitors must have had hard lives if they had to put up with anything as disgusting as that. Turning her gaze to her own desk, she slid what few random books she had out back into her bag and swung the strap over her head, allowing the strap to rest on her shoulder. Her books gathered and her mind in a haze from the day’s boring activities, she eased her way down the rows of desks and out of the silent classroom.
Although the classroom was peaceful, the hallway showed a new world. There were so many people, all crowded around each other, lockers, or doors and trying to make their ways home. Being a typical high school, everyone was divided into separate cliques. The nerdy kids were huddled around their lockers, trying to fit every book possible into their backpacks without them exploding from the pressure being forced upon them. The skater kids were mainly outside on skateboards or messing around on the side rails, not caring if they broke every bone possible in their bodies. The ghetto kids, who took up most of the population, were talking about anything from who they were going to beat up next to the latest music artists. Girls, and sometimes even guys, dressed in what seemed to be the preppiest clothes stood talking about the latest gossip either verbally or through text messages written at lightning speed.
The remainder of the high school population consisted of music freaks, multiple foreigners, and the outcasts, like the girl who stood pressed against the wall and trying to avoid being run over by any impatient weekenders. Easing herself out of the usual mob of people who blocked the exit, she stumbled over some guy who had been sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk with a pre-calculus book in his lap, and into the courtyard.
The same crowd existed outside as it did in the hall. The ghetto kids had more space and were free to practice “dancing” without any care as to who saw them. Everyone stood in groups, only caring about the people in their clique and their own reputations. Being an outcast, the girl didn’t necessarily belong to any specific group of people. Her fellow outcasts were scattered amongst the rest of the high school population, and most of which were still unknown to her. Not knowing all of her group’s members didn’t stop her from belonging to the clique; if only her status in life was better.
A quick glance around the courtyard was all it took to tell the girl that her friends had already left. With no reasonable point in staying, the girl began her trek across what she considered “dead man’s territory”.
“Hey Luci!” a guy called from her right. His bleach blonde hair stood out easily amongst the crowd that surrounded him, all of whose members seemed to disperse after hearing his outburst. If the girl hadn’t known him, she would’ve been able to guess that he was a fellow outcast, but there was no need in guessing. He was her best friend, after all.
As he made his way towards her at a somewhat fast pace, she continuously fought the urge to make a run for the old bus stop on the corner so she could just go home already. But, the more she thought about the plan, the sooner she realized that he was bound to follow her.
“Heading home?” he asked as soon as he reached her. From the way his chest pounded, the girl could easily tell that he was out of breath from what seemed like a short journey across the barren land to reach her.
“Of course, why? Thought I’d want to spend my otherwise boring weekend around here?” she asked, her mood easy to determine from the tone of her voice. A simple shrug was the boy’s response as he slipped his hand into his pocket to check what must have been his phone. One glance was all it would take for anyone to tell that whoever was designing this age’s technology had nothing better to do with their lives.
After hitting multiple buttons, most likely to write a text message, the boy looked up to see his friend staring down the walkway. A group of kids, most of which belonging to the ghetto part of the high school population, were arguing over what sounded like the dumbest thing possible and most likely was. A swing of an arm was enough for the entire group to start throwing punches in any and every direction possible.
“Think we should go?” the guy asked, snapping the girl back into reality. She looked over at him then the mob and her head slowly nodded as a response. Adjusting the bag on her shoulder, she began to make her way past him and back to the hallway she had just left, trying to take an alternate route in hopes of avoiding the rampaging teenagers.
“C’mon Tyler.” She called to him. He rode the same bus and lived across the street from her, so he might as well come along. He looked over at her and nodded, soon trailing behind her like a lost puppy. The two made their way along the side of the building, careful not to interrupt any lovers in embrace or skater kids trying to pull off some reckless stunt. As they reached the end of the long brick building, they eased their way through the overgrown bushes that had been planted during the school’s construction and long since forgotten, and made their way out to the sidewalk that surrounded their pathetic excuse of a school.
“Hope we can catch the 3:30 run.” Tyler muttered as the two passed a few preps who were laughing hysterically about some unknown joke. The girl looked down at her wrist to check the time; if only she had remembered to put on her watch that morning.
“Well, I’d be able to tell you, but my hand drawn watches don’t tend to have the right time.” She replied. Tyler looked at her and couldn’t help but burst out into a state of hysteria. The two were forced into stopping only halfway towards their destination in order for the hyena to catch his breath.
“Luci, you are always the quietest in class but when you finally open up, you know exactly how sarcastic you need to be in order to make someone laugh.” He stated once he was able to pronounce a word correctly without bursting out into laughter once again. With a roll of her eyes, Luci placed her hands on her hips and looked around the same old neighborhood that surrounded their school. Eager students were climbing into cars that had been parked on the curbs, excited to start their party-filled weekends. Others were returning to homes that stood extremely close to the school, all of which seemed old and with families who had or were going through hard times.
The economy these days was the main cause; it was either money or dumb arguments that caused a family to go through rough times. Scanning across the porches, Luci could see that the owners were worn, old, and only able to drag on through the days with the help of drugs. As long as they took away their life-long pains, they would keep the drugs coming, even if it meant selling everything they owned to obtain their pain-killers. As the prices on everything rose at tremendous rates, so did their addictions. If it wasn’t drug addictions, it was family abuse. Drunkards sat lazily in rocking chairs, staring at the many children who littered their lives and, from what Luci could see, wishing they could change their pasts. It was hard to live through those conditions, but they managed. Somehow.
“…Luci…Luci!!” Tyler yelled repeatedly, trying to get the girl’s attention. Luci blinked repeatedly multiple times and looked at him. His blue eyes were full of worry as he looked down at her. Being about four inches taller, he had multiple advantages over her. His main, and most likely his favorite, was the ability to stare her down until he got an answer out of her.
“Don’t have to yell, you know.” Luci retorted and continued her way down the sidewalk, flipping her shoulder length, brown hair over her shoulder as she did so. It didn’t take long for the sound of quick footsteps, obviously Tyler’s, to reach Luci’s ears. He rushed up behind her and placed his hand on her shoulder, forcing her never ending journey to be put on pause once again.
“You okay?” he asked, the worry that consumed him easy to hear in the sound of his voice. Luci’s golden eyes made their way up to meet his, her top teeth making their way out to bite her lower lip. He really was worried about her and almost always was when her mind was hazy.
“I’m okay…just thinking…” she replied and forced herself to look down at the sidewalk block they stood on. His arm swung down to his side and allowed her to continue down the sidewalk towards the bus stop. Her mind in thought, she kept her eyes on the ground, constantly ignoring the multiple rants that were emitted from any bystanders at their so-called friends and family. As soon as she reached the old, rusty bus stop, she raised her head and looked at Tyler, who was standing by her side.
“Why is it that people these days are so…different?” she asked, a bit out of the blue. He looked at her with a confused look, obviously not understanding what she was trying to ask him. Before he could ask, the same old blue bus pulled over to the side of the road on squeaky brakes and opened their glass doors to allow the afternoon passengers onboard. The two outcasts climbed onto the clunk of metal, that was somehow able to maneuver through the streets without running into every building possible, and sat themselves in the back and away from everyone else. Of course, if they were to talk, there weren’t going to be many witnesses. The only people who actually rode buses these days were old people and teenagers, and sometimes adults, without licenses.
Once all of the passengers had been settled, the metal beast continued its way down the road, somehow avoiding every obstacle thrown into its path. Tyler looked over at Luci, who had her eyes focused on the Velcro strap of her bag, and nudged her arm with his elbow to get her attention.
“What do you mean, ‘different’?” he asked. She looked up at him and turned her upper body to face him, preparing herself to explain what her mind had been focused on most of that afternoon.
“Just look around you. In school, we’re all divided into our own groups. No one interferes with anyone else as long as it won’t cost them their social status.” She began, and then noticed he was preparing his own argument.
“School is always like that, Luci.” He replied, trying to get her to face reality.
“But it’s not only school. Look out there at all the people in those old homes. Their going through hard times and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.” She proclaimed, her voice rising as a sign of her argumentative side growing. “They’ll always be addicted, they’ll always be poor, they’ll always be mistreated, abused, pitied on, and there’s nothing they can do about it but live with it. We can’t do anything to fix it either. The world these days is just so…split up. Everyone is based off of their social status and it’s everywhere you look.” She explained. Tyler gave a look of concern, his mind in as much thought as hers was. After a few minutes of silence, a sigh escaped her lips and she turned to the window, staring out into the wreck of a world she was forced to live in.
“It will always be like that, Tyler. These days, it only matters if you have the latest technology and best status to be known. And it doesn’t even matter if you’re at school or out in the real world. If you can’t find a place in society, you’re neglected and pitied on. The world we live in…it’s disgusting…” she added, folding her arms across her chest. After many minutes of silence passed, Tyler finally spoke up.
“Luci, the world will always be like this because people think too much. If people didn’t think, our world wouldn’t be in this ugly state. Everyone would be treated equally and it wouldn’t matter what anyone else had, in terms of money, social status, or possession. But, the world isn’t like that. That’s why there’s poverty, economic decline, conflicts, and all the other defects of every society in the world.” He explained to her, causing her to turn back to him and study his words carefully.
“I just…I wish there was something that could change it…” she whispered, staring down at her bag once again. “The world should be a place where everyone can live, happily. It shouldn’t matter what other people said or what we had…the only thing that should matter about anyone is that we’re all alive and okay…” she added, looking up at him to see his opinion. He looked down at her in return then up at the rest of the bus when multiple gasps escaped the other passenger’s mouths. The two outcasts looked up to see a fight ensuing in the middle of the road, obviously a brutal one. Whoever was winning had the unfair advantage; he had a gun. The passengers opened windows and stuck their heads out, trying to hear anything about the fight. There was a lot of yelling, but from what Luci could hear, they were fighting over the one thing that was tearing this world apart: status.
“I told you, Tyler. That’s all this world is. If you’re status is poor, you won’t be accepted.” She said, tears forming in her eyes. He looked down at her and wrapped his arms around her small body.
“It’s a sad truth…but we all have to learn to accept reality for what it is…because there isn’t anything we can do to change it.” He replied in a whisper, careful not to let any bystanders hear their conversation. The fight ended in a matter of minutes; all it took was a gun shot from the crazed maniac to silence the man who was considered a disgrace in their society.
