Personal Hell

Time Started: 8:22

This is something I wrote for Writer's Notebook the other day. I like it, so I think I'll share it.

The prompt was to write your own personal hell;

Song of Inspiration--Hellfire, from Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame.

There you are, sitting in a chair that was once probably very comfortable. The cushion on the back is missing, squish under your rear nonexistent. You ignore it, concentration on the poster before you.

Though not a perfectionist by any means, you do your best. This class means a lot to you, especially given your desired job, so you choose to sit alone. The whole table is yours to spread rulers, sharpies, and colored pencils of varying brands about in a way that makes sense only to your scattered thoughts.

And then the seats fill, one by one.

First you don’t mind, because the girl is like you. She wants to do well. She wants to possibly persue the carreer.

But then more arrive, talking over your head at each other. Someone spills something on the table, but you wipe the bright-orange Monster off the corner of your poster with a half-hearted reassurance that everything was fine.

And then someone decides to help by inking something in for you. The lines are wavy and in no way professional. The microphone is now colored bright purple for no apparent reason, the amp now resembling the nose of a cow.

It isn’t your work any more, and you can’t do anything about it.

You can’t yell at them, because they were just trying to help.

You can’t move because all the tables are filled.

You can’t work alone anymore, because they need partners too.

You can’t do your best because then they don’t do anything, or it looks like a piece of crap on canvass because they don’t take it seriously.

They don’t take you seriously.

They don’t take life seriously.

Over your head they threaten and curse, screaming and chewing and unintentionally driving you up one wall, across the ceiling, and down the other. Around and around, messing with iPods and eating hot cheetoes, and all the while you try to do your work.

Try to stay sane.

Try not to yell at every one of them to get the eff away before they ruin another attempt at hard work.

All you want is to go back to how things were, back to when you could actually hear the teacher, back to when you did well because there were no messups, no interruptions, no ‘accidents’.

You begin to wonder if they’re doing it on purpose, but they seem to be oblivious to your hints.

You can no longer be comfortable, crammed into the smallest corner of the table as they stretch out and steal all the legroom for themselves. You don’t want to be rude, so you stay quiet.

Quietly suffering in your own personal hell.

Sounds bad? Sounds annoying? Sounds like an unnessecary frustration?

Welcome to my first period class.

Yeah, I unfortunately deal with that every day. I know from experience that you don’t really pay as much attention when you’re with your friends. You don’t care about the people around you because they aren’t crutial to your life. So you ignore them and go about your business.

But I also know, from even more experience, that that isn’t too fun on the other end.





This has been a certified drabble courtesy of Sincerely Doubtful Productions