Boredom

Fidgeting fingers and tapping the table. When will this conversation be over? Can they tell by the increasing tempo of the song I’m drumming to, that I don’t want to be here? The continuous clicks of my pen create a new rhythm, a new beat—one that will hopefully keep me engaged as the monotone voice begins to fade in my ears.
 
My pencil flies away; guess I’m not a master of pencil spinning yet. When I do succeed, the blur of complete, satisfactory circles falling perfectly into my hands climbs its way back to erase what I’m hearing. I rub my hands. My wrists. My arms. Maybe my face, my cheeks, my eyes. Working my fingers to keep them busy, threading them through my hair, occasionally going back to the song I made. I have to make sure I’m still here, still focused on whatever ghost is talking to me. Who am I talking to again?
 
I stare at the wall behind them when unconscious, or instead shoot the sharpest stare down their eyes when my mind comes back. Maybe if I glare at them long enough they’ll get a hint. But the monotone is back, so the voice fades and fades, into the abyss, but not the abyss of mind or my ears, my hands or my eyes. Instead my eyes observe everything but - who are we talking about again? Eyes wander, eyes trace my surroundings. Eyes suddenly notice that I have a loose thread on my shirt. Eyes look up, then down, then they stay there to rest.
 
Everything around me suddenly feels so real. Tongue resting in my mouth, until it’s not resting (unlike my eyes). Where does my tongue go? The taste of my lunch just ten minutes ago lingers in my mouth. I can smell the sickly strawberry jello that the school still hasn’t abandoned.
 
The nothing then turns to something, and when my eyes wake up, when I feel the invisible hand on my shoulder, the inaudible voice booms through my ears (though delayed), when I realize it’s my turn to speak again—I’m suddenly looking at a person. Someone real.

 

Inesalto

NY

18 years old

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