Walking. It’s a rather simple concept: you put one foot in front of the other and just go. Not much to it – definitely not enough to actually think about it. It’s as simple as breathing, which you don’t have to think about, either. But walking becomes an entirely different ball game when people are watching. Staring. Judging. Your face heats up and your eyes jump around the area. It’s especially rough in enclosed spaces like a hallway, a hallway with slamming lockers and groups of strangers that people call your friends. There are so many people around that not only is your face heating up but you can also feel the flames climb up your entire body. You feel the sweat sliding down your spine – you hope no one will notice.

You cannot keep your eyes on one set person, too nervous to actually make eye contact that lasts more than half a second. You pull the hair that is covering half of your face upwards, just to have it fall back down again. There are just so many people. Too many – like a plague, but instead of people dying more just keep coming. An epidemic of high schoolers has taken over. I am so sorry for your excessive gain. All you can see are masses of flesh and the bags on their backs that make them look twice their size. Overbearing.

Breathe.

Laughter erupts somewhere behind you, unsure of who it is just makes it worse. That’s the thing that terrifies you about high school – the unknown. It seems like everyone except you knows everything – how to speak, act, smile. They know what that laughter was about, but for all you know they were laughing about you. It seems to be the most likely scenario and it doesn’t even cross your mind that someone just said something funny. Laughter doesn’t feel like the best medicine at this moment, more like an overdose than anything else. Turning around, awkwardly looking at all the pretty girls smiling, smiling at you – whether it is to be nice or patronizing you have no clue, which of course just makes things worse.

Your movements become jerky and almost mechanic as you go back to the journey ahead. But the slowness of your gait makes others push you aside, not really caring about the inner turmoil of another person. It always seems everyone passes you by – becoming successful, starting college – and here you are slowly making your way out of a mob infested hallway. How do they do it? Be calm, that is. Why is it that you cannot be like them? What makes them so special and you so inadequate for normalcy?

More laughter, more staring, more everything. Why can’t things just stay the same and not have to have so many double meanings? You don’t want to think about if a certain flick of the wrist means sudden social death or if that person just has a nervous twitch. It’s mind boggling how much you think into things when everyone else is oblivious to all the signs around them. Can they not see, see the epiphanies of people like you? You, who are so sensitive to every detail surrounding not only yourself but others. A slight curve downwards of the lips, the rolling of one hip to another, the cracking of an aching back – are these all not signs? Signs that indicate something for one person but something entirely different to someone else? How are you to tell the difference?

It drives you mad, once again with the unknown. It’s as if everyone relies on you to know the answers, but then no one asks you the questions. Like a teacher with a semi-functioning class. Teachers always know the answers; when the next test is, the answer to question number three, etc., etc. Yet not one student will raise their hand to ask – they are either too engrossed with the outside world to care about what goes on in these walls or too busy pretending to know the answers to ask.

It would be nice to be like that, you think; to be so confident in yourself that there is no self-doubt. Look at them, so at ease, so intimidating to watch. It is sad to think about, the aspect of people looking so welcoming is what makes them so unapproachable. Someone walks next you – a familiar face – they talk quickly and excitedly, you are too engrossed with debating on where your eyes should be, you do not quite grasp their one-sided conversation. Before you get a word in they are off to the next random body in the sea of the overdosed, plague dwellers. You are happy they left, there now is no chance to stumble into a mistake – you do that a lot, make mistakes.

The feeling of the hallway stretching farther and farther outward is making you pull at the hem of your clothing. You do that a lot, too, pull at things – hair, clothes, glasses, lips – it’s a never ending habit, one to keep just for the sake of keeping. A safety net or better yet a security blanket – something to fall back onto, a temporary, physical reminder to your eternal dilemma. Your thought process becomes shadowed by self-doubt, walking becomes harder, breathing becomes heavier. Not only are you tugging at that lone strand on the sweater you hide beneath, but your other hand keeps clenching against your book bag’s straps.

It feels more like a walk to an execution than to the lone door at the end of the hall. Whose execution, you do not know, but the sluggish pace keeps on going. A slow and lengthy process towards the unknown. Great.

Left foot. Right foot. Left. Right. Left. Right. Deep breath.

Your limbs are shaking as you pass the boys in tight shirts – some whistle and others do that smiling thing again. It’d be so much easier if people didn’t have faces – if everyone just had a blank surface that coats the skull. No one would be able to talk, no one would be able to judge, criticize, manipulate. All we would be able to do is think. And walk. No one needs a face for walking – well you need to see, but if the blind can manage so could the rest of us. Or maybe we would be like bats and use sound to find our way around. That would be nice – no staring or talking but you could listen. Everyone would get better at listening instead of making noise.

As you dream up this ideal world of the “bat-people,” your pace becomes slower and more resistant to reaching the end of the hallway. Happy thoughts do that to people, they make them wish for a better life – a better end. One happy moment can change all the bad ones, you think, but you know that happiness is only there for a short time. A glimpse at something that can never be permanent because sadness will always take its toll, at least take its toll on you. Maybe that’s why you are here. To suck all the bad into yourself so everyone else can be happy. That in and of itself is enough to ruin a person’s life, just the idea of someone being a sort of pain-sucking-machine in order for others to feel relieved is a rather troubling thought.

You try to shake the thought away but that just heightens the feeling of gazes burning into your back, front, and sides. So to keep from dealing with the stares you begin to focus on the smears on your glasses, honing in on the smudges splattering the lens blurs some of the smiling faces. You keep your glasses grimy for just that reason – to alter the vision you see beyond recognition. Sometimes you’ll even lose your means of clarity, to be oblivious to the people slurring about, just to get through the day. You pull them off now, for a moment to have a visual block from the surrounding crowd. No one is looking now, you can’t see them so it is impossible for them to see you.

Lack of clarity makes you trip.

Pushing the glasses all the way up the ridge of your nose, the sensitivity comes back in waves. People are back to staring because you are back to seeing. It is difficult to keep your head up, so you let it hang low. It isn’t the same of course, you can still see them watching from the side of your eyeballs. Letting your eyes shift upwards they seek out the end door – it isn’t too far away now. But the closer you get the more your eyes take in, there are so many more people at the end of the hallway. You have to push past the bodies and it makes your skin crawl – you never liked touching.

You’re now painstakingly clear vision spots a bulletin board on the wall. It’s odd, you notice, as it’s almost bare. So much cork can be seen, it looks as naked as you feel. Only a single sheet of paper covers the board in a futile attempt to give its existence purpose or to try and give it a shred of decency. Maybe both. The flyer catches your eyes, as it has this odd shade of red. Almost a muddish pink, like the color of blood being mixed with bleach. You get a bad taste in your mouth and swallow.

It burns.

You’re stopped in the middle of the hallway, wishing you could move. Wishing you could leave. But that tiny piece of paper bathed in blood and cleansed with bleach keeps you at a halt. You almost forget the crowd until they start to shove you towards the board. Your body slams into the wall and someone comes up to you and asks if you’re okay. You think they’re the one that shoved you in the first place, but can’t be sure. You turn away and face the scandalous bulletin board, showing more corked skin than you ever could. You avert your eyes to the only article of clothing it has.

The flyer confuses you, as it has a picture of you placed neatly at the top of the page. You’re smiling in the photo, though your glasses were dirty and the focus was all on you. It was terrible and forced and now you look at the picture and wish the board was completely naked. But the flyer is right in your face and it’s hard not to read a sheet of paper when it has your face on it.

An open casket will be held after school at 4:30. Please come and give your support to family and friends. Our prayers are with them during this grievous time. Remember: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Grief consoling is accessible during all school hours for the remainder of the semester.

The words blur together and you don’t want to look at them anymore but you don’t want to go back to the mass of family and friends either. As the crowd condenses, the people mix together – no longer individuals but one giant blob of flesh and bones inevitably pulling you in. Like a snowball of people, taking bigger form as it crushes you for simply being in its path. The heat rising up in your body is no longer from embarrassment but from the sheer amount of other heated limbs.

Breathe.

You can’t.

Pulling yourself out of the magnetic force of people, you finally make it to the door. They look just like regular building doors – the double doors that you need to push to open. They’re the color of red, the paint chipping in some places more than others. The bolted windows are foggy like your glasses, it is impossible to make anything out on the other side. This frightens you, not knowing who is out there and if the pressure of humanity is bearable or not.

Your hands tremble as they lift up to push open the door. Light that seeps out of the crack slinks across the floor and spreads upwards along the walls. You continue to shove the dense doors letting more light pour in. When it’s finally all the way open, you slowly take a step into the light. Color is everywhere, but lacking at the same time – like white, every single color mixed together to create a nothingness. You stare forward, there is simply blank space. Looking down at yourself but you find that there’s only light to see, pulling your arms and hands up in front of you – you feel the movement, but there is no body. The next thing you do is turn around and peer through the still open door. There is nothing but whiteness.

You sigh in relief.

You turn away and begin to walk.