Apara: Chief Piece

I have to jostle the people in the halls to get to the Theater. The rush of people actually moving is so different: there are no horrible sights - people crucified to the walls, people staring off into space, people turned into vegetables. Everybody dumps their backpacks in front of the auditorium like sacks of dead stones about to be ground into our lunch. Ugly, lively chattering noises invade my ears and worm their way into my head, sure to stay there for the rest of the day.

The Big Teacher pretends not to run things here, she hands the power of announcements over to her skinny white cronie, David. His presence is so small, yet it looks over the crowd like a tiger waiting to strike. David’s voice fills the air, while I pretend to follow along on the screen that hurts my eyes, and he calls up Mr. Bisgaard. He may be the most “powerful” person here, but we all know it is Big Teacher that wields the axe. The people are like a pulley with parts being constantly removed and replaced due to wear and fear. At the end of each announcement, I can hear the buzzing at the base of my skull; people talking and then clapping their hands off. I think that it is their way of avoiding being crucified. Little teachers glare at the cogs from their places in the shadows,

Big Teacher comes up next, and screams at us about citizenship and behavior. She threatens to send us to the axing factory, which is where all the good parts of the factory decide how to beat up the bad parts of the factory. If I get sent there, I have to go back to hell, so I decide to pay attention: “I don’t want to hear about drugs or alcohol or fights,” she says. Well, there’s no problem there. The white fog condensates if I drink or take drugs that the Big Teacher does not shove down my throat. They put me in a perpetual state of dis-ease, but it’s better than the shock shop. However, this place does have a lethargic shop. For whatever reason, the school decides to punish students by making them sit in a creaky room haunted by the ghosts of people bored to death, those ghosts whispering in my ear a series of pings extremely loud music that I can’t hear, and hissed swears.

Leaving is like trudging up, up, the never-ending staircase of life. Everyone drags their feet as little teachers usher the kids to their impending doom with large smiles on their faces. It is no use. We cannot fight the wave of people, we cannot stop moving. We are just another piece being placed in the machine, jostled, twisted, sanded down until we fit (with no regard of how much it hurts). The incessant noise at the end of assembly lodges itself in my head again, and for the rest of the morning I a whistling like madman, and the overseers glare at me like a defective cog.