I wrote this as an assignment in the person writing block of my 10th grade English class. The assignment was to write about an experience we had at a particular place. I wrote about my experience at my middle school, getting off the bus in the mornings. As you will tell, I hated that school. This piece was chosen to be published in my school's literary magazine, The Vindex.
Icy Morning:
Early Monday morning, I begrudgingly descend the stairs of bus number thirty-one and step down on the sidewalk, staring at my religiously gilded prison. I stand before a worn ninety-four year old building: the upper school, which houses grades six through eight. Surrounded by a sea of cracked, gray asphalt, which seems to reflect my attitude toward the school quite nicely, sat the old building itself. As I raise my eyes to the top of the three-story school, I see little more than rows upon rows of monotonous, chipped brown brick, which feel no need to impress. Perhaps previously impressive stand the long brown flowerboxes about two feet tall, hiding the base of the school in front, and interrupted only by the locked, metal double-doors in the center of the building. On this chilly winter day, the open caskets of deep brown wood have nothing to display in their mahogany mulch except misshapen globs of chewed up gum and graded papers boasting less than praiseworthy percentages. Reminding me that this unfavorable building is, in fact, a Catholic school, in typewriter style letters, was the building’s black identification: “Immaculate Conception School”, crucified high above the flowerboxes. Many of the letters, unwilling label such a building with such religious words, had fallen off, in shame of their position.
Proceeding toward the building, a bump in the fractured pavement trips me up, as if to remind me that my day here will not be a smooth one. I regain balance, set my uniformly brown-clad feet back into place, and stare down at the uneven and frost-glazed ground, not wanting to meet the disparaging eyes of my peers, whose icy stares bore into you far more effectively than the winter breeze. This is quite a feat, considering the weatherman had predicted a wind-chill of -4 degrees that day. A gust of that frigid wind pushes itself through my bulky blue coat, and I hug myself and breathe into my numb hands in an attempt to stay warm as I watch bus after yellow bus unload my less-than-moral classmates, who then scatter themselves around the thirty feet of blacktop in front of the old building. Arrayed in identical plaid gray skirts, rolled up to fashionably acceptable lengths, and khaki pants, groups of students huddled together shoot judgmental glances at and whisper about their least favorite people, then proceed to turn their green-vested backs towards any poor soul who tries to breach their oh-so exclusive cliques. The sight of this makes me involuntarily wince, and I suddenly feel the winter cold intensify. The ghostly white mist of their breath hangs in front of their harsh words, momentarily clouding their malevolent expressions, and then disappears as if it were never there at all. My peers didn’t seem to have taken many of the Immaculate Conception’s lessons to heart, and rather than being angels in training, reminded me of malicious little demons who, instead of fire, used the freezing weather to their advantage. After this, I must say now that I agree with Robert Frost; ice would very-well induce enough destruction to suffice the world’s apocalypse.
The collective groan heard from the groups of cloneish students, who at least have their dislike for school in common, penetrates my reddened ears and informs me that the dark gray entrance had been opened. My strict old science teacher barked a harsh “Hurry up!”, her wrinkly face creased into a disdainful frown at the lethargic students. Identically, like prisoners to their prison, my peers kicked the stray rocks out of their way and trudged slowly into the building. The now languid expressions on their winter-whipped faces told me that my peers were neither prepared nor enthusiastic enough to hurry towards their first period religion class. The brown bricks, vainly stacked with religious intent for these unwilling demons, swallowed them consecutively up. The weight of my heavy backpack seemed to want to hold me back from the hypocrisy, but I, having no other choice, followed suit behind the line of students, managing to avoid most of the remaining bumps in the pavement. The freezing metal door stung my hands as I held it open, and I prayed that the heater might be working somewhere in this old building.