The Kid With the Hat Six Tables Away

I was sitting on one of the plastic seats at the lunch table today, its surface smooth but irritating at the same time (contradictions seem to rule my life lately), and I was picking at my sandwich, because for some reason sandwiches only taste good when I'm at home on the weekends eating one alongside the rest of my family, and I let my eyes wander around the cafeteria. Here were all of these people, hundreds of them, close in age and location but truthfully little else (intelligence, maturity or frank lack thereof, compassion...but who's paying attention anymore anyway).  And here I am, one among them, and we're just sitting in these seats, planted down in this mammoth space like cultures of bacteria in a petri dish, just sitting here, sitting sitting talking and it comes so naturally, it comes without thought or question. Every day when the bell rings, our legs kick into action and simultaneously throughout the school thousands of feet lift and start a mindless walk toward the cafeteria. Because a bell rang. Because somehow, during our years in educational institutions, we have been taught to respond to cattle calls. What if, when that shrill note that always seems longer than it did last block/this morning/yesterday afternoon, what if when that wavelength reached our ears we absorbed it and that was all? No gut physical reaction. We would just stay, remaining as we were. In the distance, teachers would cry foul. "Rebellion."

Imagine.
We come to school to learn to think for ourselves, but every day we are our own paradoxes.
In this I am equally guilty.