Spacing Out

The classroom has a strong musty smell, though you know that you will get used to it once you’ve been in there for a while. On one side of the classroom are large round tables and a few square desks, boxes of tangled wires and batteries stacked on top of each other, small LED lights flashing on the printer and the vacuum machine and other random electronics. On the other side is a small fenced square field built for robots- that is, high-school-student built robots used for fights and competitions- inside it there are obstacles and ramps, and the foam padding you see in those baby daycare playing pens. Visible nails punched in the metal of the fence, plastic panels inside of them. The only light that illuminates the entire room is from the doorway, but only a portion of the doorway though, only from the small window on the door, sharp defined angles of light casting onto the completely dark ground. You do not turn on the lights, because the artificial lights are too white and bright, they make you feel sick, they make you feel like you’re in a hospital with the white tiles and the smell of alcohol and the buzzing sounds from the vending machines. There are visible dust particles floating around illuminated by the small square of light coming from the doorway.

Twenty minutes until class. You have friends in this class, but you didn’t really want to come, not that the class is uninteresting, but you’re tired. You can’t explain why you’re tired.

People in this class kind of do their own thing. People screw in nails, sometimes they use drills, they saw pieces apart, the shiny metal pieces, they put in the axles for wheels, they build the contraptions, sometimes it involves loud banging, there’s a pattern of holes in the metal you use, some components have spikes and some don’t, occasionally you have to use 3D printed things, code, there’s always code involved, the mechanical typing of keyboards, click click click, the click of a trackpad too, the lines of green and white, errors, red errors, there are lots of batteries involved, blinding lights, wires, tangled and zip-tied, more coding, click click click. You code because you don’t like the rusty feeling that forms on your fingers after touching metal for an hour.

Your classmates like you, at least you think they do. You’re not completely sure. You are mostly good (you think). You like to say that you slack off, but you like what you do and you put in effort. Sometimes people crack jokes with you or ask you for help. You offer to code for other people’s robots. You think the teacher likes you too, maybe. Again, you’re not completely sure. You all get along well. Class is often slow, but satisfactory.

It’s not a big day today, it’s just another day like every day, more working on building and coding and talking with classmates in this windowless classroom in the basement of the library. You take out your phone, the bright light coming from it temporarily hurting your eyes; it slowly dims down. Press the numbers on the number pad. Check your notifications. The back of your neck hurts. Lean back and stretch, massage the back of your neck, squeeze it, try to make your bones pop, roll your head, it’s still sore. You can hear sound coming from the hallway, the footsteps of teachers wearing high heels and the jingle of the keys of security staff. Other than that, it’s silent.

You see people on social media posting about their athletic lives. Actual proportionate people, all muscle and tied up hair and shorts, wearing linen light short sleeved sports t-shirts. And balls, tennis balls, soccer balls, volleyballs, pictures of people hitting them, usually a frame where the racket is just touching the ball and the shirt of the person is all curved weirdly, and their hair is swinging, or the frame where a person hits the ball with their hands, mouth open, looking up in mid ear, with their teammates in the background, all look like their in the middle of panting, sweat on their forehead. You don’t get why people like sports.

Nineteen minutes until class.

You would best describe the classroom as an ecosystem of machines, there are nails on the ground, pliers and screwdrivers everywhere, rubber bands, tape, controllers, screwed together pieces, chargers, hooks, and lots of boxes. The walls are white, but you can’t see it because it’s too dark in here, even when your eyes have already adjusted to the darkness. You sit down on a chair with wheels and spin around out of boredom. Boredom is resulted from not having constant stimulation, you decide. Message your friend, you tell yourself. Anything. Don’t think, just type. Thinking about what you type defeats the purpose. Just say something to fight the boredom, even though you have messaged your friends five times today already. Just say gibberish. Small talk. Something meaningless. You hear something fall from a cabinet at the back of the classroom. Don’t get distracted. Go inside private messages, and send something. Your chat history is cluttered, with visibly more of your icon appearing than your friends. Ignore that. There’s a picture you sent them but they didn’t respond. Ignore that too.

Eighteen minutes until class.

Have you typed anything yet? Your friend is not online. There are other people in this app talking in group chats that aren’t related to you. You start to read your previous messages, but then decide to stop because you already know how it goes. The classroom’s air conditioning has turned on- a constant low humming sound now filling the room, which your ears aren’t used to yet. In a few minutes you won’t even remember it. You turn to look at your robot in the corner of the room- the one that you built, the battery light is flashing, there’s a rhythm to it, flash, flash, flash. You need to charge it. Stop thinking about your robot. Word by word, you start texting your friend. “How” you type. How what? “How are you” you decide on. Do you send? You see a few students walk past the hallway from the window in the door. They all walk the same. They walk over, glance at you in the classroom, then glance away and continue walking, with their steady paced footsteps and the backpack on their shoulders and the phone in their hands. You watch from the dark as they each pass you by individually. Look like you’re doing something. Maybe pretend you’re looking at something on your phone. There’s this pattern to the students walking past, almost like there’s a set system involved. You look back down at your phone and decide to send the message. You should do something. Mindlessly search in your bag for a piece of gum, maybe. Continue spinning on your chair. You receive a text from your mom- her icon is just her face, with wrinkles by her eyes and a wart by her mouth. Her hair is dyed, since she doesn’t want to admit that she is starting to grow gray hair. She sent you pictures of you brother, who has gained weight since you last saw him, his face starting to get a little bit chubby and his stomach swollen. She sends you pictures of something every day. You decide to check your grades.

Seventeen minutes until class.

You’re a straight A student, but not a straight A+ student, maybe your grades are the reason you’re tired. You feel stressed out and exhausted. Imagine how high honor AP students feel. You check the time again, even though you know it’s still seventeen minutes until class. Your friend still has not responded, even though you know it has only been a minute. Time goes slowly, as if you can feel every single second pass by, and it’s excruciating. You turn off your phone. Then you turn it on and check your notifications again. It has been about ten seconds since you last did that. You stare at the light coming through from the door. The light beam is long. Beside it is the door handle. You’re cold- isn’t the air conditioning on? Now you can hear the humming of it again. It’s like how when you consciously think about breathing or blinking, you can’t breath or blink naturally.

You open your journal in your digital notes. You write in it every day, but you have not thought of something to write today yet. 11/29/2021, 700 words. 11/30/2021, 400 words. 12/1/2021, 50 words. You try to figure out the contents in the trashcan in the corner. Napkins, crumpled and ripped, all compressed into one big lump. On top of it are some plastic gloves, not the quality ones but the ones you can get at the dollar store that feel thin and easy to break. Time feels like it is not passing- how is there still seventeen minutes until class? And why hasn’t your friend replied? Quiet. Everything is quiet. Thoughts are going fast, but calm. You can still smell the musty smell. No time. No time and no sound. You can only hear your own breathing. Look at the light- you can see the cool shapes in it, and the cool yellow color. Why are you so mesmerized by the light? Is it because you are using anything, even the most insignificant objects to try and distract yourself so you can fight off boredom? Why can’t you just go do something, like read, or draw? You don’t want to read or draw. You want to stare at the light. No thoughts. No time. Just quiet. Maybe your friend has replied, but you don’t want to check. No time. You close your eyes and lean back. You listen to the small electrical sounds in this room coming from all the machinery. It’s nice. Calming, somehow. Everything is quiet. There are footsteps in the hallways again, but you don’t register it. It’s like the sound is blocked from your mind. Your mind is blank. No time. Just you. Not even you, maybe. Just nothing. It’s not that cold anymore. It’s comfortable. The door to the classroom opens- you don’t register it. It’s your friend, but you don’t register that too. Your mind is blank. No time. No you.

Sorry, just got your text. I was walking over.

No time.

Hey. You awake?

No time. Time doesn’t exist if you stop thinking about everything. It’s quiet. The world can be quiet sometimes even when you are screaming in your head.

Hello? You don’t seem okay.

Deep down you wonder- why do you always succumb to daily routine? Why do you always become bored?

Are you sick?

You taste battery acid on your tongue. You don’t process. No time for processing.

Hey there. What’s going on?

So do you want to always do something or would you rather do nothing at all? Maybe you don’t have to choose. Reality and imagination mixed into one. A constant state of dissociation. Your mouth tastes really bitter now. There is no time. This is forever.

Hey, sorry. I was just spacing out.