As I was gazing at the sun through the window, searching for the friendly and warm beams of light emanating from it, but instead all I felt was a chill that was isolated from its warmth only giving me the feeling of being alone. This was my life, always reaching towards the stars, and endlessly punching an omnipresent wall in front of me. While I was dreaming for the world to stop its aberrant disgust towards me, I hear a distant yet close voice calling my name.
“Nicholas…Nicholas… Are you going to answer the question?” I look up with a muddled expression on my face as though I didn’t know I was in a classroom; I see my teacher speaking to me. She repeats,” Nicholas, are you going to answer the question? Is something wrong, do you need to go to the nurse?”
I tell my teacher, “Sorry, I was lost in thought. Can you repeat the question please, Mrs. Powell?” I don’t quite grasp the reason why I am so polite to people who are insignificant to my existence. She was an example of someone who always looked at me with eyes filled of pity, but never did anything for me except give me a fabrication of a real smile. As if her smile would break down my enclosure, and let me run free with a jubilant look on my face.
She then asks me, “What are your goals in life?… Since I am the new English teacher here at the school.” It was the same old pattern of introducing yourself to the class which is exactly why I think it is pointless. It’s not as though if people knew who I was or who she was, they would start treating me differently. I will always be the kid in the corner of the classroom, or the person swimming from a remote island towards civilization that always getting pushed ashore by the forceful wave called society. Also, why does she need to know what my goals are? It’s not like my dreams will ever come to fruition.
“I want to become a doctor,” I said, with a dreadful look on my face because I know when the world hears my dreams; it will as always put an impregnable barrier around them. Just thinking of the barrier around my dreams is flooding my mind with thoughts of the traumatizing events that shaped me into the disfigured person I am today. I was disfigured by the many events of my past like how the Egyptian Deity Osiris was cut into twenty-seven pieces by his own brother. At this point I am yearning for this conversation to cease, but yet I knew she was going to ask that one exasperating question.
Mrs. Powell then asks that very question, “Why is becoming a doctor your dream? It’s quite a great dream to have don’t you think so?” She replied to me as though she was a machine set up to respond to certain interactions based on the user’s input. Everyone in the class looked at me through the windows of my enclosure waiting for my response. Questioning how the gloomy kid in the corner of the classroom is going to respond to such a cliché question.
I looked at my teacher with a desolate expression on my face and said, “I want to become a doctor, so I can make a difference in the society we live in.” My classmates probably are thinking that it was such a cliché response to such a cliché question, but they are completely wrong beyond question. Though they most likely think that the difference on society that becoming a doctor is to save lives or to help people who are in need, but for me, it will be a march on the society that shunned me to an isolated island. I believe that achieving this dream will be the first time I receive the tenderness of the sun’s warmth instead of the cutting winds representing my distance from it. I believe that this feeling of isolation is a feeling that only a select few people and I will ever fully comprehend.
Mrs. Powell finally ends the conversation by saying, “Isn’t that a wonderful reason for your dream. That very idea of making a difference in society is exactly why I became a teacher, you know?” She continued to talk about why she became a teacher, but I was drawn to the window looking towards the warmth of the sun like a moth attracted to lights. Until I heard a soft voice say something divergent to the many countless fantasies called dreams.
“I want to be friends with everyone, that’s my dream!”
“What a great dream! I’m sure you can be friends with everyone in the class.” Mrs. Powell replied with a smirk. As if she knew I wouldn’t open up to anyone, and because of me her dream would never come true. In my opinion, the fact that I heard someone’s voice was an achievement of its own, but I only heard it because she said it with overwhelming sincerity. As if she knew she was going to become friends with everyone and didn’t even think that she could fail her dream in any regard.
Two days went by, and I haven’t heard that sincere voice since the beginning of school. The reason why I address her as that sincere voice or the sincere voice is because I don’t know her name nor do I know what she looks like. Of course, I’m not going to actively try to find out who she is, but it wouldn’t hurt if I stumbled upon it. Since her sincerity was able to break open my cage for a few moments at most but allowed me to feel as if I was free from the everlasting isolation society casts upon me.
Even though I believed I wasn’t going to actively look for the person whose voice broke down my enclosure, I found myself staring at my classmates wondering who it could be. Until I heard the words of my classmate next to me, “Nicholas, do you want to be my friend?”