Draven's Story: Memory 3
Sorry this took so long! I was originally writing something for Secret but this ended up happening instead!
Time always finds a way to be inexplicably slow when it sees fit. Seconds feel like minutes, minutes seem like hours, and a regular school day is a death sentence. Draven knew that he wouldn't be able to focus in his classes today. Today was too important; today... was report card day. And the little raven knew that if he didn't do good enough, his parents would punish him in some way. Nevermind that he did not know what "good enough" meant as he never seemed to be able to achieve it.
To the school's credit, they knew that tensions would be running high so classes were easier than usual. Instead of discussions on the topic of gender roles in early Alden literature or listening to a teacher drone on about some mathematical principle for an hour, students were generally left to their own devices. This gave Draven an ample amount of time to do absolutely nothing.
Okay, that is not entirely true. He wasn't doing nothing. He was just... thinking. Stressing out a little bit? The day started out great with a headache that churned the teen's stomach along to the pounding of his head. Fearful of throwing up, most of Draven's morning was plagued by the smells of a lower education bathroom on an already stressful day.
He needed some fresh air.
Black feathers stood out against the collage of multicolored plantlife in the garden. A solitary raven lay amongst the flowers. His head turned upwards towards the sky as he watched the clouds stroll past. The wind flew through his feathers, making the bird shiver.
He didn't want to think. He didn't want to think of anything. But he had to so his mind wouldn't remain on that. Yes. He couldn't think of that. Instead, he would think about...
...
...
...
Draven could only think about how much of a disappointment he was to his parents.
He knew that he wasn't as smart as the other kids. Too shy to raise his hand, too stupid to answer the teachers' confusing questions in a thoughtful manner. He could only scratch the surface while his classmates could see the deeper meaning in everything. He struggled with mathematics, only sometimes remembering what the symbols on his paper meant. He promised that he was trying but no amount of assistance or studying ever proved fruitful. Why was he like this? Why was he so useless?
I don't have the answer.
Draven wiped the tears away from his eyes with his watch, which displayed a time of "08:43". It had only been 43 minutes from that start of the day but the teen could have sworn it had been longer than that.