Sian Maher
My eyelids began to draw together and my lips parted, my mouth allowed a lazed yawn to escape from my throat. My hands were not pre-warned to react to the spontaneous actions of my mouth. My mind hadn’t yet caught up with my surroundings. I found myself on a desert island, surrounded by a sea of adolescence. A lone boat, which possessed an uncanny likeness to that of a painfully plain wooden table, floating between insanity and insomnia. Her eyes were an arrow and I was the target; piercing through me like a sword to a body; a lion’s teeth to a zebra’s dying carcass. Her eyebrows knitted in anger. She, the predator, and I, the prey. She, my teacher, and I, the pupil held beneath her grimace. “SIAN! Pay attention or I’ll give you detention!!!!”. Her outburst leaving nothing but differing frequencies ricocheting off of the inside of my skull. My attempts at maintaining competence, failing to show. I never believed myself to be ignorant yet my Second Year Teacher failed to see over my fatigue.
My lack of sleep began to force my attention to gradually deteriorate. In that moment, the word reluctantly crept from between her teeth and slowly began to sound aloud. So gradual, the letters procrastinated in approaching my ears:”D.E.T.E.N.T.I.O.N”. My Friday afternoon had gone from, well, a Friday Afternoon to what felt like a Monday Morning. My perfect record had suddenly been tarnished. I could almost hear my Parent’s yammers of criticism and disappointment. My eyes collected the tears from a wishing well but I had no pennies.
The end of last period approached and I still had found no pennies. Ten minutes. Two minutes. Twenty seconds to go. I left my last period subject and headed towards the designated classroom of despair. I could feel my phone burning in my blazer pocket. Scolding my skin with cynical words which wreaked from my phone’s speaker and scratched at my ears. Words of my imagination which were tattooed in my mind. Words which I believed would soon come from my Mum’s mouth, despite the lack of evidence I had to suggest that this would, potentially, be the case.
I sat down in the chair as my hands shook and fingers fidgeted with the apprehension of what was before me. The school bell began to ring, it sounded more like a gavel rapping. Outside, the sky clouded; as did my brain and a greyness overtook whatever colour remained. The ‘event’ began, and a piece of lined paper was presented before me “Write out the rules of the school twice and you will be dismissed.” I grasped my pen and began to write. It was over within moments. My first and last detention occurred in September of 2013. And since then, I have never had the sheer audacity that I possessed in Second Year to yawn without covering my mouth in class. Lesson learned. Alright, alright. So please, always remember to pay attention or the teacher may think you deserve a detention.
