A typical Thursday afternoon, that was all it was. Rain petered down the window panes of the bedroom, refracting the little rays of sun that were there into some distorted, misshapen image of what they formerly were, and all the more hidden by the peach drapes that hung there. The temperature was balmy -- simply temperate -- as was normal for the area in the spring (despite the rain), and as much was reflected in her very room. The rare car drove lazily up or down the already sparse street, creating a buzz that cut into the noise that was the gently playing radio. A typical Thursday afternoon, that was all.
Except, it wasn’t, at least not for her. She sat in her room, illuminated in the peach haze, breathing. She was simply breathing. The girl’s mother leaned in her doorway, watching with worried features as her daughter rocked herself back and forth on her bed, cradling the teddy bear she had been given at birth.
“Honey,” the girl’s mother had tried to start again. “I’m trying to understand what you’re going through, but you’re not making it easy for me.”
The girl refused to look up, refused to meet her mother’s caring visage, and instead buried her face deeper within the scruff of her bear’s neck. She hadn’t been to school for the entire week. She had just turned eighteen.
“Mother, please,” she finally croaked. “I- I just don’t see the point; it just isn’t something I want to deal with anymore…”
“But your education-”
“-is all you really seem to care about, isn’t it?!” The girl’s voice was intense, even if she still hid her face. “School this! School that! Why should an education matter more than what I want to do with my life?”
Her mother wavered; the education system had been so engraved into their culture that she had never thought of questioning it. “Well then,” she started, choosing her words carefully, “what is it that would want to do, sweetie?”
That question had been it. She didn’t know what exactly it was that she wanted to do with the rest of life peeking out at her; she had never been presented with any viable option besides getting through high school before eventually hitting college. But she knew that that life wasn’t for her. She was smart on her own -- smart enough to begin questioning her role in this life -- why should she put herself through something that she hated? Something that made her stressed and unhappy in life? Who was to tell her that this predetermined path was for her? That the eventual material gain was worth her precious time she could be spending happy. The girl wasn’t happy now, not with all the materials that her upper-middle class family provided, and her mother couldn’t understand why this was. What could be more important than a comfortable life, her mother had always thought.
“...I don’t know,” she had finally said, the tears beginning again.
“Then why do you refuse to go to school!?” Her mother was exasperated from her daughter’s antics, and it was starting to show. “If you don’t know, then why don’t you at least give it a chance?!”
“But I have!” she shouted at her mother, throwing the keepsake that had been in her lap at the woman. “For the last twelve years of my life I have put an effort in giving school a chance, and in return I’ve learned how to find the angles of a triangle and how to balance a chemical equation, but for what? How are those things going to help me in life when all they have done is cause me stress; anxiety which has me biting my nails and pulling my hair out!? Huh!? Would you please explain this, explain why I should give two shits other than that it has become a societal norm?”
The girl’s breath was ragged from her screaming, and her mother had since taken to the ground, crying in desperation. “I just want to help…” her mother wept, “I just want you to have the best life possible, sweetie.”
Her daughter sat on her heels, the rage that blew in her sails simply sapped away with her mother’s words. She was confused, she recognized as much, and the result had been making the woman who had taken care of her for the past eighteen years of her life cry. “Mom I-” the girl was crying again, these tears being of grief and not of the previous frustration. “I’m sorry.” She cupped her face in her hands as the sobbing took control. She had lost herself -- she was already lost -- and she lacked the insight to know what she should do next. So instead she wept in her room with her mother, the two never embracing like in the television dramas, but instead letting their emotions simmer until all they could feel was the twinge that was sorrow. Eventually, the mother left the room without word to her daughter and her ever conflicting thoughts.
An average Thursday afternoon, that was all it was. The sun’s rays flitted through the girl’s drapes, highlighting every speck of dust that drifted without cause through the air; the sun’s rays highlighted the gleam in her eye. The temperature was cool, collected, despite it being the middle of summer, and as much was reflected in the atmosphere in the room. Cars drifted up and down the street, bustling with the movement of people and boxes in and out the back of a U-Haul, the buzz of the commotion not being nearly enough to drown out the blaring, upbeat music that came from the radio. It was an average Thursday afternoon, but not really.
The girl smiled in reminiscence of the “calamity” which had taken place only a few months ago. She hadn’t graduated, but she planned on working toward her GED. Work, she thought, work was what lie ahead for her, for a long time to come, and she was fine with that. A place in the world where she can make the right decisions, her own decisions, that was what she craved, what she had desired all this time. Working as a hostess, a waitress, or even just washing dishes, it all seemed okay for her to do until she came up with some grand goal for her to achieve; she saw no reason to shackle herself to a career she would be miserable in like the rest of society; she was finding her own way. She was finding her own happiness, despite what society was telling her was impossible otherwise without that great, important diploma gathering dust on the wall. A single bird’s chirping grew louder than the rest. She smiled.
“You coming dear?” It was her mother at her familiar station of the door-frame. She had been hesitant about her daughter’s decisions, but tried to support her the best she could, as that’s all her daughter wanted: emotional support; encouragement.
“Yeah, I’m coming mom… Just give me a moment, ‘kay?”
“Alright; your father and I will be in the truck waiting then.” Leaving her daughter alone, she felt almost assured of her little girl’s well-being; sad that she was leaving the nest in what she viewed to be an unconventional way, but assured none the less.
The girl had one last thing to do. The drapes. She wanted them, not to serve in their intended use, but to serve as her banner. A banner showing that her turmoil was what partially shaped her, made her who she was today, and she wanted to display that proudly. Teenage rebellion? Maybe, but she had found her way, and was hoping that the troubled youths like her of the world found a resolution similar to hers.
The voting for this month’s WOTM – and the Short Story category in particular – may have been off to a slow start, but that didn’t stop Voltin’s Thursdays from earning more than a respectable number of votes with its simple yet relatable story. The voters have agreed unanimously; Thursday is miles away from Mondays and perhaps even better than Fridays! So congrats to Voltin on such a tremendous win!
