OBLIVIOUS WORLD.

• Lucy Wood, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2013

I’m running through a forest, a forest not made of trees. Well not normal trees, they are made of words. They scratch and tear at me. I see owls and birds of all kinds, foxes and rabbits and all animals. Each one caws at me. None welcome me. I turn to avoid a snickering cat when I hit a tree. But I don’t hit it; I somehow soak through, into another world, a world familiar to me; my home. The terrors have not followed me in here, I am safe.
Now I’m the bathroom of a school; I can hear a girl weeping. Then there is another girl, Victoria, standing in front of a cubicle laughing. Three girls are behind her, smiling. One is holding something twisted and broken. It’s a tremendous painting of a rose. It’s been ripped in half and burned on the edges. These girls have destroyed a terms worth of hard efforts. And the worse thing is; she can’t do anything about it. If she tells a teacher then the girls will go to the principal’s office, come out, and torture her even more for getting them in trouble. All I hear is crying.
I am no longer in my body now. I am in the air. I am floating above my school. Except its different; before, the only feelings I felt were my own, now I feel everyone’s. I feel the guilt of the girl holding my painting in the toilet, the happiness of a shy girl being complemented by a stranger. Then there is the pressure of a teenage boy. He thinks that he has to show off to get a girl. He’s wrong. I feel the stress of a 12th grade history teacher. They know him only as the cranky man who gives harsh grades but at this angle I can see that he is struggling with a divorce, the loss of his father and a daughter who acts like she hates him. This teacher is sitting in the staff room with his head in his hands, a cup of tea next to him. He is quietly sobbing, but no one stops to talk to him. They know him only as the cranky teacher.
Then walking past the staff room door is the new boy. I can feel his happiness from getting his first A. He is so proud. I can see it on his face. His thoughts drift to mine as he thinks of how excited his grandmother will be. After 5 years without his mum he is finally getting his life back on track. But that smile vanishes quickly. Someone behind him has called out ‘nerd’ and he starts walking faster. They catch up and well, I stopped watching. I knew there was nothing I could do.
I walk back through the corridors and see the stories behind each person’s life; some happy, some sad, all unknown, the hardships of others anonymous to those who surround them. They are all oblivious.