The Spider

[LillLazaru5]

The Spider

Part I

Having to wake up in five in the morning, with the alarm ringing, the ears stinging, and being in an apartment alone was not pleasant. This was my daily routine for a long time, mostly since I started high school. You would probably think that my mother would be there to cook me breakfast and give me “Good morning” when I come out of the bedroom and stretch my aching muscles. In this story however, that did not happen. My mother died from a heart attack a day before the story began, and I never met my father. My mother used to tell me that my father abandoned us when I was about two years old, or maybe younger. I used to be curious as to where he is, but then I grew to be apathetic about it. There was no need to see him, nor know about him. Another part of the routine was getting from bed, not caring to stretch and going straight into the kitchen to make myself a hard-boiled egg, pack my lunch, and get ready for school.

I hated school. All of my high school years dragged and dragged as if it were to pull my leg ad drag me across the floor, and across time. One reason I hated it was because it seemed too easy for me. I’d get straight A’s in almost every subject, and the material was easy for me. Another reason was because of all the other teenagers that were my age. In both genders, the only differences between the two were the puberty, and other privacies. Other than that, they behaved the same. The jocks and the popular chicks would go out, and everyone would be in their own groups and isolations. The girls and the boys would dress the same and have tastes in the same things. Last, school was a contest of popularity. A contest I did not want to participate in. I’d rather put myself into serene isolation than have any friends or participate in a club or sport. Life in school wasn’t worth it to me. In this story, I was 18 and a senior. You may think it is sweet relief, to get out of high school and enter the real world. For me though, sweet relief was when I skip class for five minutes to go to the bathroom. I had an apartment to take care of, especially the bills. Once I graduated, I wanted to sit in my apartment and do nothing, except getting a job.

Once my breakfast was done and devoured and with my lunch packed up, I went to the bathroom to brush my hair, my teeth, and wash my face. I looked at my self in the mirror for a second. I used to do this to make myself feel good, and just to remember what I look like: My black hair almost down to the shoulders, my pale skin with some veins showing on my neck, spreading to the cheekbones, my mint colored eyes, some pinkish red color over and under my eyes like eye-shadow. I was very creepy looking. I went to my bedroom, and took off my pajamas and put on some clothes. It was a black, loose shirt that had a big white spider in the center that was long-sleeved, black pants that weren’t too loose, nor too form-fitting, and some black sneakers. Without cleaning up my mess in the kitchen, I took my school bag and got out of the apartment building. I locked the door, and finally got outside.

I walked to school. It usually takes me an hour or so to walk all the way there, and a couple minutes to drive there. I had a car (my mother’s car), but I didn’t drive it unless I had to. Usually to the grocery or the drug stores that were a bit farther away. The day I was walking to school, the sky was very gray, and the clouds were marching across it, and some colored leaves flew around on the sidewalk, and my hair created movements with the wind. It was close to winter during the time, and the temperature was cold. It never snowed in the town though. If it did, I would not have moved from my own bed in the apartment. The town was usually full of wind and storms in the winters, and full of humid and sunlight in the summers. People would walk around in the sidewalks, with or without children. Cars would drive by as well. There would be benches and stop signs around, and bus stops. A lot of people would wait for the bus. I took the bus once, but I never did again. The street lights were off, and people sat on some of the benches. I walked passed them, and continued to walk. Often times, there were some people who would beg for money, and I’d give them a couple dollars (sometimes more). A lot of people didn’t have very much money in the town, and neither did I. There wasn’t much to do in the town except grab what you need and get back into your place, or just work at a job, take breaks, and get back in, or just sit and do nothing. I was born and raised in the town, and so all I had to do was live there.

I got there to the school just an hour before school started. School started at 7:30, and I got there about 6:30. I opened the main school doors, and walked myself in. The hallways were gray on the walls and floors, and the lockers were a light blue color. I found my locker, and unlocked the combination. I opened it and grabbed my textbooks. I held them in my arms until the bell rang. The school would seem small in the inside, but it was really a big school. There were separated buildings of where the offices were, and the cafeteria and library. The classes were all in one building. Every subject was in one building. It was very easy to get lost or go the wrong way, and there would be tons of crowds to squeeze through for almost every class. It wasn’t very fun. When I was leaning against my locker, I watched people pass by me. Some whispered about me, some ran by me and called me “Mr. Skinny” or “Mr. Creepy” from some distance. I rolled my eyes to myself, since I didn’t care what they called me or what they used to say about me.

My real name was Mark. Why I was named Mark, I didn’t know. I was a boy that looked creepy, but I was mostly sickly. I had some physical ailments as a kid, mostly some stomachaches, pains and malaise. No doctor was able to find what was wrong with me, so my mother would let me sleep it off or have me take some pills to make me feel better. While leaning against my locker, the books dragged me to sit on the floor. One girl came by with a strange look on her face. I knew who the girl was, with her long blond hair and her black dress with white polka dots, and her pink unmatched shoes, she was very easy to recognize. Her mother was a friend of my mother, and we usually would be partners in a bunch of projects together. So, you could say we were childhood friends. I met her when I was 12 years old, and she was 11 at the time. She was cute then, and she still had that cute, child-like face. I’d most likely call her an acquaintance though. I didn’t know her very well. She looked at me with sincere concern.

“Are you doing okay?”

I responded to her in a voice that seemed very silent. A tone I usually spoke.

“I’m fine. The books are just heavy.”

She sat by me with a smile on her face. She looked at her watch, and then looked back at me with her cute smile.

“We’ve got thirty minutes.”

I made a slight moan. I did not want to stay against the locker and stare at people or the wall for thirty minutes straight. So she finally decided to talk to me after some minutes, and it killed the time. She talked to me about her mother and her life, and I decided to just listen and not really say a word. There was really nothing to say whenever she talked. She was a mouth full of words and tantrums and complaints. The bell finally rang, and I went to my first class of the day.