10
The hallway, associated with people and noise. Rough shoulders mixed with fast paces, what the student deals with while trying to get to class on time. Except, not everyone understands the importance of timeliness and accidents happen, the kind of accident that happened on the otherwise ordinarily boring Wednesday. On this horrendous day, little Katie Dowell was aggressively shoved to floor, just an afterthought of someone hoping to not be late for perhaps another history test. With nobody even remotely trying to help her up, little Katie stumbled to get back up in the dreadfully over crowded hallway.
9
The cafeteria, a sea of anxiety for anyone on the first day of school. Clicks claiming seats and others trying to find their own friends mixed among the dangerous mass. If you didn’t have any friends in that hour, you had to find new ones. This was mentally impossible for some, like poor little Katie, who didn’t have any friends in that awful school. So when she stepped into the cafeteria that slightly aggravating Wednesday, she skipped trying to find a seat and went straight to the bathrooms. She didn’t even bother to look at the vile food the school called lunch.
8
The bathrooms, something everybody tried to avoid in the school. Everybody except the girls whose eyeliner had smudged, or thought they needed to add another layer of lip-gloss to their already glossy lips. The bathrooms were part unclean, part no necessities, and part infelicitous messages written everywhere. It was completely harrowing to people with germophobia. That’s why it was very strange that forlorn little Katie found herself there for the fourth time that appalling Wednesday. She, however, just found it soothing to her many panic attacks to read about somebody’s unfortunate, and probably false, pregnancy behind closed stall doors.
7
The locker rooms, a mess of bobby pins and perfume sprayed everywhere. Most girls were okay with the locker room, enjoying the little messages of how each and every one of them is beautiful written on the somewhat okay mirrors. However, insecure little Katie was not like most girls, knowing the people who wrote those messages have obviously never met her, and that they weren’t written for her. Again, not having any friends to talk to while changing like the other girls, little Katie found herself in another bathroom stall that dreadful Wednesday. Thinking about the idiotic laps the school forces upon all the students while changing into the uncomfortable shorts didn't help at all. She ended up dragging her feet nervously against the cold hard floor of reality and to that moronic class.
6
The actual classroom, filled with suffocating people and questions. Teachers who purposely call on students they know were not paying attention just to embarrass them. The teachers always talk about how students shouldn’t bully each other, but what’s stopping the teachers from doing exactly that. Who’s stopping glum little Katie’s teacher from calling on her, knowing full well that she doesn’t like attention drawn to herself. Would anyone actually stop the laughing students who snicker at little Katie for not paying attention to the teacher, who instead was trying her best not to just get up and run out of the room? Yet another unfortunate event to happen on little Katie’s unfortunate Wednesday.
5
The councilor’s office, pencils perfectly placed in mugs and bright colors, signs of trying too hard. It had the scent of cheap candles wafting around, trying to cover the stench of depression and desperation from both the students and the staff. It was the last place despondent little Katie wanted to end up, but her lack of communication to the people her age around the school worried her teachers, forcing her to weekly visits. When little Katie entered the office, she sat on one of the couches the school obviously only bought in a desperate attempt to try to get the students to feel more welcome. As the overly preppy councilor questioned little Katie overly personal questions that quickly took her straws one by one and stomped all over them, little Katie had an unexpected outburst. On that repugnant Wednesday, little Katie yelled at her councilor to leave her alone and left the office.
4
The Courtyard, like the hallways, is overcrowded with the rush to not miss buses and to get as far away from school as quickly as possible. More shoving, pushing, boisterous noise, and trash littered the slightly damp grass from the rain that fell earlier that execrable Wednesday. As dismal little Katie made her way to her bus, she tried not to pay attention to the conversations around her, thinking they were all saying inimical things about her. She failed miserably, but on the brink of yet another panic attack, at least succeeded in keeping unshed tears in. Only tripping a handful of times, she had made it to her bus, unprepared for her next challenge.
3
The bus, revolting in smell and sound, with garbage everywhere and rowdy students throwing things and talking way to loud for an egregious Wednesday. It’s always near impossible to get a seat, unless someone wanted to awkwardly ask a stranger for sitting privileges on the ratty, decrepit seats. As dejected little Katie made her way down the isle of the bus, people moved their bags purposely to the space available, not wanting to be stuck sitting next to her. She eventually found the last seat available, an overly stained and ripped one that nobody’s supposed to sit in. If she sat down far enough, the bus driver wouldn’t be able to see her. For the reminder of little Katie’s journey on the bus home, she sat in silence as other students threw objects and words above her.
2
The walk home from the bus stop, treacherous for a student who is already exhausted from having a stressful school day, especially bad for cafard little Katie. On that monstrous Wednesday, the bus driver forgot to stop at the actual bus stop, forcing her to walk farther than usual. Little Katie, cursed her bad luck for having tripped, and made the half mile walk home with her unreasonably heavy books, having homework in every class. She made it home just as the rain started up again. Little Katie still got a little wet, but not as soaked as she would’ve been if it had started any earlier. She pulled out her house key and unlocked the door that’s paint had chipped; glad to finally be away from the stress of school.
1
Home, the only place that could potentially be worse than school. High expectations mixed with the pressure that said expectations create. The smell of disappointed was the first thing that welcomed miserable little Katie home, or to her house, since it never really seemed like a home to her. She threw her slightly damp bag on the first chair she saw and tried, unsuccessfully, to get to her bedroom unnoticed. Little Katie’s mother had been waiting to talk to her that atrocious Wednesday. Little Katie obediently sat as her mother yelled at her for her earlier outburst in the councilor’s office, then nagged about how her grades weren’t as good as she expected them to be. When little Katie’s mom was finally done with her rant, little Katie trudged up to her room. She then closed and locked her door, and didn’t come out again that day.
0
That is the force that caused big, wonderful Katie to become miserable, cafard, dejected, dismal, despondent, glum, insecure, forlorn, poor little Katie. The big mysterious force that nobody but Katie knows. Now, you might be thinking, what happened to Katie after this last straw was drawn? The answer is simply that it is up to Katie. Millions of people like Katie make the decision every day of their life, but what happens if nobody knows it? What about the person who bumped into Katie? What if their going through the same thing? What of the councilor? Are they doing anything? Of course they aren’t, how can they help if they don’t know. How can Katie even ask for help if she doesn’t know how? If every person she’s ever met has been condescending, or oblivious, or ignorant. How does little Katie know who to go to, what to say? How does little Katie know that the person she does tell isn’t just going to tell her to suck it up, to stop whining, that people in Africa are starving and she’s upset over such trivial things. How they would much rather have her problems over theirs. People need to stop thinking like that; different people go through different things. How are we supposed to know that being homeless is worse than being rejected when we’ve never experienced it ourselves? How are you supposed to know that being rejected isn’t worse if you’ve never been rejected, or ignored, or scolded? How are we, as humans, supposed to know? The truth is just that we don’t. We don’t know. That’s the reason why numerous little Katie’s are having monstrous, egregious, execrable, repugnant, unfortunate, dreadful, appalling, aggravating, ordinarily boring Wednesdays over and over again. That’s the force that is leaving us with that unfathomable choice. So, you tell me; what happened to little Katie?