She sits in her room, staring at the disarray of textbooks, at the cluttered pieces of coloured paper tacked up on the corkboard. At her computer, glaring and unforgiving, with monotonous lines of black sentences, like little ants making horizontal lines on her screen. She doesn't know why she's bothering with this. This thought strikes her like the lightning that bolts outside amidst the roaring rain. What was she doing anyways? Why couldn't she just get up, switch off the harsh light of the monitor, shove the textbooks; that taught nothing but standardized words to remember during standardized tests; off the floor and rip the multicoloured Post-Its off the corkboard, scrawled with reminders of events that had seemed important to her at the time. And then just fly away. A wry smile curled on her lips. A loud wind howled outside, it called to her, a moan that bellowed her name. Telling her it wasn't worth it. That all this, this was nothing. This was the surface.
So she stood up and switched off the monitor. So what if her essay was unsaved? So what if that wasn't the proper procedure to switch of the computers? Repercussions, consequences, they were all materialistic. She shoved her riduculously thick textbook off the desk, and it slammed onto the hard floor, the thin plastic binder making a resounding crack as it contacted the marble surface. Papers slithered out in all directions, as if the pages had come alive. Some slithered underneath her shelves, some under her bed. Her floor was blanketed momentarily with a serene white cover. She smiled and stepped over them, a few of the pages sticking to her bare feet as she made her way to the corkboard. Words with multiple exclamation marks jumped out at her. "BIG test!!" and "Due date by 13th!!" were prominently tacked on right in the middle of the board, probably one of the more recent additions. Big test was in a lavender colored Post-It while Due date was on a more subtle torn piece of notebook paper. She tilted her head, staring at the fully-covered board for a few moments, taking some time to read some of the messages she had written to herself. Was this what her life was going to be? Made slave to a corkboard? Forced to commit her time to complete every single one of the tasks that had been dilligently tacked on? A crack of light flashed through her room, followed by resounding thunder, ringing in her eardrums. Her right arm shot out and swept across the corkboard, knocking it askew. It was again like a winter wonderland, except now there were a myriad of coloured reminders floating down leisurely and the more heavy thumbtacks clattering across the floor. Well, maybe it wasn't like a winter wonderland, after all. She smiled widely as she glimpsed the original dull brown of the corkboard that had been buried underneath the notes all this while.
Grabbing the pen she had strung to the corkboard and tearing off a stack of reminder notes she had bought last year that had big block letters marked 'URGENT' on the top, she scrawled a big smiley face on the entirety of the little note. Picking up a fallen thumbtack from the ground, she tacked it proudly on the center of the corkboard. After that, she shot out of her room, running down the stairs, jumping the last five steps and stumbling from the impact as she hit the ground. Yanking open the door, she laughed as she was greeted by the strange darkness of the thunderstorm in the middle of the afternoon. Knowing there were consequences and results, she might as well do all she could now. Without turning back, she clenched on to the bars of her front gate and though slippery and she had never done it before, she smoothly pulled herself up and shot over the other side of the gate. Her feet slammed onto the gravel, though it was softened by the enormous puddle that splattered her entire body with murky rainwater. Didn't matter, she was wet anyways. She could hear something calling at the back of her mind. No, not now. She wouldn't listen now. She was out, free from the gates. She started to run again, away from everything, twirling around in the billowing rain, relishing the cold pinch of wind and water on her face, the loud smack of water against the sandals she haphazardly slipped into. Her clothes were dripping wet and she had already started shivering. Her legs were already weary from the sudden clench of cold. But she kept on running, though she had to squint because the rainwater was getting into her eyes and the wind was so strong, she could actually feel it pushing against her. Where was she running to? She didn't want to know.
So she stood up and switched off the monitor. So what if her essay was unsaved? So what if that wasn't the proper procedure to switch of the computers? Repercussions, consequences, they were all materialistic. She shoved her riduculously thick textbook off the desk, and it slammed onto the hard floor, the thin plastic binder making a resounding crack as it contacted the marble surface. Papers slithered out in all directions, as if the pages had come alive. Some slithered underneath her shelves, some under her bed. Her floor was blanketed momentarily with a serene white cover. She smiled and stepped over them, a few of the pages sticking to her bare feet as she made her way to the corkboard. Words with multiple exclamation marks jumped out at her. "BIG test!!" and "Due date by 13th!!" were prominently tacked on right in the middle of the board, probably one of the more recent additions. Big test was in a lavender colored Post-It while Due date was on a more subtle torn piece of notebook paper. She tilted her head, staring at the fully-covered board for a few moments, taking some time to read some of the messages she had written to herself. Was this what her life was going to be? Made slave to a corkboard? Forced to commit her time to complete every single one of the tasks that had been dilligently tacked on? A crack of light flashed through her room, followed by resounding thunder, ringing in her eardrums. Her right arm shot out and swept across the corkboard, knocking it askew. It was again like a winter wonderland, except now there were a myriad of coloured reminders floating down leisurely and the more heavy thumbtacks clattering across the floor. Well, maybe it wasn't like a winter wonderland, after all. She smiled widely as she glimpsed the original dull brown of the corkboard that had been buried underneath the notes all this while.
Grabbing the pen she had strung to the corkboard and tearing off a stack of reminder notes she had bought last year that had big block letters marked 'URGENT' on the top, she scrawled a big smiley face on the entirety of the little note. Picking up a fallen thumbtack from the ground, she tacked it proudly on the center of the corkboard. After that, she shot out of her room, running down the stairs, jumping the last five steps and stumbling from the impact as she hit the ground. Yanking open the door, she laughed as she was greeted by the strange darkness of the thunderstorm in the middle of the afternoon. Knowing there were consequences and results, she might as well do all she could now. Without turning back, she clenched on to the bars of her front gate and though slippery and she had never done it before, she smoothly pulled herself up and shot over the other side of the gate. Her feet slammed onto the gravel, though it was softened by the enormous puddle that splattered her entire body with murky rainwater. Didn't matter, she was wet anyways. She could hear something calling at the back of her mind. No, not now. She wouldn't listen now. She was out, free from the gates. She started to run again, away from everything, twirling around in the billowing rain, relishing the cold pinch of wind and water on her face, the loud smack of water against the sandals she haphazardly slipped into. Her clothes were dripping wet and she had already started shivering. Her legs were already weary from the sudden clench of cold. But she kept on running, though she had to squint because the rainwater was getting into her eyes and the wind was so strong, she could actually feel it pushing against her. Where was she running to? She didn't want to know.
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