Random Vignette

    He looked down at the table as if waiting for an answer to leap up at him without further troubles. The palm of his hand was resting on his right temple, and he looked down at the paper in front of him, tired. Then he sat back and looked up at the ceiling as if the early hour was weighing him down. He was working on a paper that had been handed out days before; and it was due next period. He was stressing out, and he could barely keep his emotions bottled up inside, but he suppressed that feeling. He was quiet like a brick wall with oceans of contents inside, and right now the waves were crashing furiously.
    “Do your homework right after it gets handed out,” his father had always nagged him. He had never listened and had always procrastinated to the last minute; not unheard of amongst teenagers, but he couldn’t help it. The thought of his father stung him. He brushed the memory aside and continued working on his paper. It’s due next class, it’s due next class, he thought. The thought of it resonated inside his head. He could not think clearly with such pressure pressed upon his shoulders, and until then he had been incredibly naïve about his homework. It wasn’t entirely his fault, though. His older brother had set a bad example for him. He decided that he would change once and for all; a moral epiphany, a sudden catharsis, and a stress that always seemed to keep coming back being his three obtrusive motivations.
    Right when he was starting to actually begin working, the bell rang. He was done for. He stood up and straightened down his jacket, his shoulders up high, tense and rigid. What would his father have said? And suddenly the paper didn’t seem so important anymore.