Day 1
Writing Prompt: Everyone else was laughing.
Everyone else was laughing. I stood there in my place wondering what the joke was. The first day of school was never my favorite even though I had too many of them. Or may because I had too many of them. Those people who said “practice makes it perfect” had not considered first day of school. The string of my first days of school begins with a day when I had stood at the corridor of my school and cried as I watched my father walk away leaving me alone.
That was years ago. Such an action was never again justifiable, even though the reasons continue to remain the same. My stay in my last school was for one year, before that it was close to two years but there I attended less than half of my classes. For most of the time I was home schooled. I remembered neither my teachers nor my classmates. I did not even remember the number of students. This one looks promising. May be this was going to be the last first day of my school. But that did not mean that the initial efforts can be discounted. That my father is ‘almost’ a local celebrity in the school is not helping my cause either. My actions are monitored and magnified beyond recognition. Sadly they are often altered on the wrong side. I had a similar experience in my last school but at least there the alteration was on the correct side.
That was years ago. Such an action was never again justifiable, even though the reasons continue to remain the same. My stay in my last school was for one year, before that it was close to two years but there I attended less than half of my classes. For most of the time I was home schooled. I remembered neither my teachers nor my classmates. I did not even remember the number of students. This one looks promising. May be this was going to be the last first day of my school. But that did not mean that the initial efforts can be discounted. That my father is ‘almost’ a local celebrity in the school is not helping my cause either. My actions are monitored and magnified beyond recognition. Sadly they are often altered on the wrong side. I had a similar experience in my last school but at least there the alteration was on the correct side.
It took me few days before I knew everyone in my class by their face, a few weeks before I knew most of them by their names, a few more weeks before I stopped eating my lunch alone and a few months before I could laugh at their jokes. That my previous class had only a third of the students than in this one pushed the task a little away from simple. And truth be told, it took close to at least a year before I could find someone whom I could call a friend.
Interestingly, the most prominent part of my school memories consist of neither the lessons that has pulled me ahead but rather it’s those moments when I found myself alone or lost. The time when I was left alone outside because I disagreed with everyone else, the time when I was criticized in my back because someone thought I was given special treatment because of my celebrity status, the time when I was laughed at because... I don’t even remember the reasons anymore. Only the feelings remain, multiplied over time. But most of all, I remember the first days when I felt like a hunted deer, ready to be pounced upon. In some places, the sheer number of happy moments overcomes the embarrassment of the lonely ones. And this place was one of those. The stay in this school was my longest. This school also gave me most of my school memories and some of the most important people in my life. At times I feel grateful that I could cross all those first days because beyond that are my most precious treasures.
Years later when after my introduction, our physics sir quipped something witty, it was history repeating itself. Everyone else was laughing. I stood there in my place wondering what the joke was. The first day of school was never my favorite.
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