V1: A Glimmer of Hope

The Glimmer

            "John, don't you dare buy a drink, we're loading the busses now." Mrs. Killroy was an exceedingly rotund woman in her late 40's to early 50's. The Orchestra and Guitar teacher at Redland Middle School. She'd only recently taken over after the previous teacher, Mr. Hudson, had left for a better job opportunity at a High School. He was a tough act to follow and because of that Mrs. Killroy was despised by every student who had spent the previous year with Mr. Hudson.

            John didn't bother to respond to her. He felt confident that he could get away with buying a soda even if it directly contradicted his teacher's command. There had been three people in front of him at the soda machine moments before who had ignored Mrs. Killroy's initial instruction to get to the busses. Why should it be any different for John? He had been waiting patiently for every other student to finish getting their drinks, and it was finally felt his turn. That sentiment, of course, lead to him choosing to blatantly ignore the seemingly powerless teacher. As he fished the dollar into the machine, he felt as if he'd escaped his drink-less fate and pushed down on the button for Surge as he turned his head and smiled widely at the teacher. Stop me from buying a drink when everyone else did huh? Hah!

            John must've drawn the short stick of karma that day as apparently the teacher was done being ignored. Her shoes clacked with harsh resonance on the ground as she burst forward and shot her hand in the vending slot. She pulled the surge that John had just bought and paid for and then threw it smugly in the garbage. "GET TO THE BUS!"

            John's pride was injured, his feelings hurt. In his mind he had done everything correctly from waiting patiently, to paying for the drink with his own money. The slight of ignoring the teacher a moment longer to get what he had felt he deserved seemed minimal in comparison to Mrs. Killroy's aggressive act. He felt his throat closing off slightly as he started to feel like crying, but he stuffed the emotion down deep and instead determined to hate Mrs. Killroy with an unyielding and destructive passion.

            This is of course just a brief description of a single event among many that steadily beat down on John until he became a child of sadness and despair, plagued by utter uncaring. A snapshot of the way in which he tended to be misunderstood as well as overdramatic. But its purpose it to show John's state of mind in his darkest hour, when the only thing that he cared at all for was music.