7:02:58 a.m. His eyes opened to the scenic view of a bumpy ceiling. Rolling his shoulders back, he tried to shake off the feeling you get from staying in the same position for eight hours. Outside, the sun decided yet again to grace us with another days’ light. After hobbling towards the bathroom, he glanced in the mirror, brown eyes glancing back, pupils shrinking, and took out his toothbrush from the drawer on the right. School was the last place he’d like to be going, and yet it was exactly where he was headed.
Travis wasn’t responsible enough, in the opinion of many people including his mother, to maneuver himself in a car of his own, so he stumbled out of the car, ignoring the gesture of goodbye, and hurried away, struggling to hide the face that revealed his mortification. Admiring his shoes as usual, he paced himself as he wandered towards the locker area, avoiding the eyes of others. 7:42:00 a.m. Three minutes exactly. He should’ve walked slower. Fumbling with the lock, Travis put his bag away and tapped his fingers against the lockers. A generous passer-by left him a piece of gum for later in his short coarse hair. 7:44:28 a.m. Thirty two seconds left. His lanky figure could be seen trekking towards class as the bell rang, pausing to tie and re-tie his stark sketchers.
With a glimmer of success in his sunken eyes, the rite detention slip found his hands with help from his first hour teacher. Had he been on time, there would only have been a circle of empty desks surrounding him. The day passed by slowly, each class the same. His notebook accumulated notes and scribbles of diagrams, most unrelated to what he should have been studying. From this, both of his lengthy pinky-fingers had acquired a lead-and-graphite shadow.
In his mind, school was unnecessary to survival. How did parabolas and equations help you eat? How could extensive vocabularies make you any more understandable? These are the thoughts that troubled Travis, while his homework sat undisturbed.