"Now come out through the kitchen to me, honey, and let’s see a smile, try it, you’re a brave, sweet little girl and now they’re eating corn and hot dogs cooked to bursting over an outdoor fire, and they don’t know one thing about you and never did and honey, you’re better than them because not a one of them would have done this for you."

~"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Joyce Carol Oats

The clock ticked at a steady pace, each click announcing its presence with an almost violent force, as if it knew time was the enemy, an instrument of fear that was all around us, all the time. An inescapable hell that could not be rewound, reversed, sped up, fooled into thinking it was something else. The clock’s hands could be manipulated physically, however, its internal workings would never be manipulated, having gained control of the universe, an unspoken reality, holding more power than the beliefs, philosophies, or theories of man.

It was a common theory among high school students that time escaped much slower within the walls of academia than anywhere else on earth. Even in public schools, where tax cuts and liberal and conservative political groups had exacerbated the academic deterioration process faster than a spiteful case of asbestos, time still ceased to exist at the standard rate.

The classroom was sweltering, even with the windows cracked all the way open, and a rather large desk fan, swiveling subtly back and forth across the classroom. Those in the back were deprived of the quick breeze of relief that filtered through the first three rows, angering the already bitter crowd who chose to huff paint and carve jagged pictorials into their desks during break time, as opposed to reviewing that days chapter assignments.

Her professor’s voice had recently ceased to shift in timbre and volume, now beginning to blend in with the soothing sound of the fan, causing her eyes to droop softly, the weight of her head supported by her hand.

They had thirty more minutes to go. She didn’t know if she could make it without dozing off.

Last night she spent two hours on her chemistry assignment and another hour staring at crack in her ceiling where a spider had recently erected a tiny web, the sticky edges clutching to the sharp flakes of chipped paint that outlined the crack. The spider was nowhere to be seen.