The light of a new day spills over the horizon. A thin layer of mist covers the fields, cutting a few cows short at the knees, making them look like floating balloons. Time seems to slow down; all sounds are muffled, and everything looks surreal and fairytale-like. Despite the hard time I gave my father, I have to admit I actually love this long, solitary bike ride to my new school. No people, no fuss—just grass, water, wind, sun, and birds.
The reality is that I have never been able to handle people around me very well. I often get entangled in the complex web of unspoken social rules and expectations that govern our social lives. After an evening with family, I’m completely exhausted.
As a child, I roamed the woods and fields around our house–eyes on the ground, head in the clouds–losing myself in my own private fantasy world, climbing trees, splashing in puddles, collecting “magical” stones, looking for treasures, fighting dragons, dying tragically, resurrecting even more dramatically, and be really, really happy.
I could drive for hours like this, but as the contours of the city grow larger, I put on my mental armor of inaccessibility and prepare myself for the confrontation with a new school full of people I've never seen before.
When I turn the last corner, I involuntarily hold my breath. There it is—my new school, big and ominous, like Doctor Doom's castle from the old Fantastic Four comics my father has stashed away in the attic. It's easy to see why people find it intimidating or even frightening. It looks completely out of place in this otherwise nondescript neighborhood, as if a giant hand has pressed it with great force between the ordinary family houses.
And it’s not just the building; it’s also the schoolyard and the metal fence: a rhythmic repetition of razor-sharp spikes meant not to deter but to hurt. No warning, no mercy. The square, the fence and the school are so black that no light seems to escape their grasp. Even the giant oak tree in the center of the square appears to have absorbed the its blackness, right to the tips of its leaves. It looks distinctly post-apocalyptic. I love it.
After I’ve dumped my bike unceremoniously on a pile of other unceremoniously dumped bikes, I hurry to the gate. Quickly scanning the square, I notice something strange: it's empty. It's not that there are no students; rather, they are all pressed against the wall or fence. It's almost as if they’re afraid the black tiles will swallow them if they venture too far onto them. I'm not sure what to make of it. For the rest, it seems like an ordinary first day of an ordinary new week. Lots of laughter and banter. Boys huddle with boys, girls with girls. All very normal, but when I step through the gate, everyone seems to hold their breath as one. I’m used to it by now. It’s my new normal. I’m the girl from the meme, the girl with the flamethrowers.
The trick is to become as “invisible” as possible, as quickly as possible, so I choose a discreet spot against the wall at the far end of the square, blending in and becoming "invisible" until everyone starts breathing again. The chatter has nearly regained its usual volume when it is abruptly silenced once more by the arrival of a short, rather plump boy carrying a large, brand-new, fully packed schoolbag as he strolls onto the schoolyard.. The way he moves is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Even “strolling” sounds way too fast to describe it. It’s an unidentifiable mash-up of dragging and sliding, and although he seems not to move at all, he somehow progresses quite fast. Even after rubbing my eyes, I’m still unable to figure out how exactly.
Even more astonishingly, he walks right onto the square itself, ignoring the obvious fact that it’s completely empty. He sits down next to the tree, slides his school bag to the ground, and starts to refasten an undone shoelace. Only then does he look up, smiling happily, the big, round spectacles, magnifying his eyes in a comical way. Cannon fodder, I think. He will be eaten alive at a school like this. I like him already.