…of the status quo

During my stay in the hospital, I’d practiced what I would tell the other students, who would surely flock around me when I came back. “I’ve never experienced anything so painful,” I’d say. “The doctor said it’s a miracle I survived.” They’d all gasp and thank God I was still alive. I practiced hiding my scorched eyebrows with my hands so that it looked natural, either placing a forefinger over each of them, like the sign language for “ox” or I could pretend I was shading my face from the sun. “I’ve gotten so popular it’s really starting to wear me down,” I’d tell my mother and father, who couldn’t be more proud.
But when I got back to school, my Moses complex had disappeared, because the news on everyone’s lips was that the crown prince was back from London after the war. During first period, the teacher forgot to call my name, like always, but instead of saying “Mathea - here” to myself like I usually did, I raised my hand. “Excuse me,” I said, “but I’ve returned.” The lightning had apparently given me a positively charged dose of self-confidence. The teacher lifted his eyes from the attendance list that lay in front of him on his desk, the other students turned around and stared at me where I sat in the back row, and I laid my hands over my scorched eyebrows and pretended I was shading my face from all the attention. The teacher had to think a minute, but finally he remembered me: “Oh, we thought…” Then he didn’t say anything more, and everyone turned back around towards the blackboard, and during recess I was alone counting rocks again.

[The Faster I Walk The Smaller I Am, Skomsvold, K. A.]