I looked across the sea of students eating their school lunches and chatting. Scarfing down the grey mash as if it was actually the chicken it was trying to emulate, and the grey walls of the cafeteria were really the warm, inviting, red walls of a café where the rules of the school were washed away. In a world of variables the calm of the cafeteria was a constant. A place for students to have the same conversations day in and day out,
AP is going to be the death of me.
Hell yeah, do you even understand half the work we have to do?
Nope
What do we have tomorrow? Two in-class essays and a test tomorrow?
Screw it; I’ll go to community college.
The complaints were serious but after week number 8 of the same conversation everyone knew what was going to happen. They would pull the all nighter and get their work done anyways. The complaints were simply a method to whitewash their minds before heading back to the classes where they would be expected to memorize whatever other facts or statistics were required for that day. And suddenly the calmness was broken, like the wake of a boat darting across the sea, as the two bodies rose with less than gentle motives,
Who the hell do you think you’re talkin to?
Really wanna do this?
Swing first son I dare you,
And then the fist started its arc as it crossed through the air, so violently that it seemed to throw everyone back but so slowly that its target simply flinched away as the fist continued its path through the air past the targets face and directly into the hardened wood of the table.
You’s an idiot son
CHRIST!!! The boy said as he looked at his bloody and very obviously broken hand.
That’s what you get for messin with me, the target said as if he had done anything but take a step away from the imprecise fist.
Then the boys were slammed back as the bodies of the security guards crashed into them like the NFL linebackers crashing into the quarterback shown on the TV screens hung on the walls of the cafeteria. They boys head’s crashed into the ground and an audible crunch was heard as the nose of the boy who had so well defended the attacks of his classmate now broke and the blood began to spray. The other boy hadn’t managed to be quite so lucky, and currently was feeling both sides of his ribs being cracked, as he was first hit by the security guard and then again by the hard side of the table that was only moments before a full ten feet away from him. The boy’s cries were drowned out by the strong voices of the security guards and administrators now scrambling to the scene yelling and screaming for them to break up the fight that had clearly been stopped what felt like hours before. The boys who originally had hated each other now felt a sense of solidarity as the were dragged out of the cafeteria with tears and blood streaming down their faces looking around at their classmates to try to get some backup from what they felt were the real attackers who now held them in tight grips behind their back but all they received were the tops of student’s heads as everyone did their best to not be involved. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the students went back to their lunches as if the incident was nothing more than mid-meal entertainment. What an odd place to eat lunch I thought as the bell rung and I rushed to AP History simply to find a place to rest my head, because of course I had been up the night before teaching myself what was learnt in the previous day’s class...while I was sleeping. I’m on my AP grind man.